Amazon Kindle Now for Sale to Customers in More Than 100 Countries
Over 200,000 English-language books now available to readers around the
globe
SEATTLE—October 7, 2009—(NASDAQ: AMZN)—Kindle is Amazon’s most wished for, most
gifted, and #1 bestselling product, but prior to today it has been available
only to U.S. customers. Now for the first time, Kindle is available to customers
around the world. Kindle wirelessly downloads books, magazines, newspapers and
personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch electronic ink display
that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle utilizes the same 3G wireless
technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi
hotspot. Readers around the world can pre-order Kindle today for $279 at
www.amazon.com/kindle and it will begin shipping October 19.
“We have millions of customers in countries all over the world who read
English-language books,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “Kindle
enables these customers to think of a book and download it wirelessly in less
than 60 seconds.”
The Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) offers international customers
over 200,000 English-language books, including New Releases and New York Times
Bestsellers, which are typically priced less than physical editions. Over 1,000
different rights-holders now have books available in the Kindle Store, including
leading publishers Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Faber,
Hachette, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Lonely Planet, Penguin, Profile Books,
Quercus, Simon & Schuster and Wiley.
“Penguin is a leading supplier of digital books to Kindle in the U.S. and we are
delighted to be extending that successful partnership to the rest of the world,”
said John Makinson, CEO of Penguin, the world’s largest publisher of English
language books. “The publishing industry is experiencing explosive growth in
digital book sales in the U.S. and we hope to stimulate digital buying elsewhere
by making our content widely available on new devices.”
“At Faber and Faber we are always seeking new ways of finding readers for the
writers we publish, so we're excited by Kindle's launch beyond the U.S., and to
be developing our strong partnership with Amazon beyond physical books,” said
Faber and Faber Ltd Publisher and Chief Executive Stephen Page.
Over 85 top U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are also available
in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription. Many international
newspapers are available in the Kindle Store for the first time, including La
Stampa (Italy), El País (Spain), El Universal (Mexico), O Globo (Brazil), The
Daily Telegraph (UK), joining top papers such as The New York Times, The
International Herald Tribune, Le Monde (France), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(Germany) and The Washington Post. Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are
auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle.
Customers around the world can now enjoy the same features that have helped make
Kindle the #1 bestselling product on Amazon.com, including:
Media can visit the Kindle Media Room at http://www.amazon.com/pr/kindle for
additional media resources and to request an interview.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened
on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection.
Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where
customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and
endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and
other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in
categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics
& Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel; Shoes &
Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial.
Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology
platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business.
Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon
SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments
Service (Amazon FPS), Amazon Mechanical Turk and Amazon CloudFront.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca,
and www.amazon.cn.
As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com,
Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's
expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth,
new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating
results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims,
fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements,
acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system
interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud.
More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and
subsequent filings.
Kindle devices are sold through Amazon Digital Services, Inc.