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According to an article by Catherine Shu for TechCrunch, a long-awaited Kindle for the Chinese ebook market may finally be a reality. While the Amazon China store has been an operational site for some time, and the Kindle store–compatible only with the Kindle app–launched in December, kiosks have already sprung up to sell the Kindle as early as next week. Prices for the devices, including the Kindle Fire HD, are somewhat comparable to US prices for the e-readers and tablet, and are slated to be available in Suning’s Tesco stores. Some of the lag in rolling out the ebook sales to what is reported to be the second largest ebook market in the world have been caused by slow adoption by China’s regulatory commissions over censorship concerns. Amazon China is not approved to sell ebooks, and instead partnered with an approved third party to sell digital editions to customers, something that the General Administration of Press and Publication has stated violates the law. Shu’s piece on the Kindle rollout does bring up a very interesting question, namely, will Amazon actually make any money on this venture? If the site is paying a third party vendor for ebooks and is competing with the existing ebook storefronts, how can the online retailer plan to come out ahead on devices that typically sell in the US for cost? An article from Doug Young for Forbes predicts that Amazon’s strong brand recognition could easily result in a 20% market share of the digital book scape, assuming the consumers respond.
Chinese Kindle Reportedly Coming June 7th is a post from: E-Reader News |
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Chinese Kindle Reportedly Coming June 7th
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