Chinese customers shop for an Amazon Kindle at a mobile device market in Shanghai, China. Photograph: Imaginechina via AP Images
With the long-overdue release of the Kindle in China last week, Amazon.com will soon find out Whether its line of e-readers and tablets can Provide the Spark That the company needs to reach the world’s largest population of Internet users .
The Kindle’s arrival is no small milestone for Amazon, judging by the splash the company made on its Chinese website. The Amazon.cn homepage was updated with a towering Paperwhite graphic advertising the Kindle e-reader and Kindle Fire tablet HD, as well as accessories and applications available.
big push in China by the Seattle-based online-retail giant has been in the works for some time. Amazon released the Kindle e-reading mobile apps and e-book store there in December. Last month, Amazon opened its Appstore for devices running Google’s Android mobile operating system. (The Kindle Fire uses a version of Android.) Amazon is investing “heavily” in China, Thomas Szkutak, the company’s chief financial officer, said on a Jan. 29 conference call.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive officer, saw China’s potential years ago. The company started factoring the country into its public statistics in fiscal 2010. The change Helped bump Amazon’s number of active customers worldwide up to 114 million from 105 million in a single quarter.
Today, Amazon’s Chinese business is still a mom-and-pop shop Compared with the competition there. Bloomberg News Reported That Amazon has spent more than eight years and $ 74 million on an acquisition without finding success in China’s e-commerce market. Even a company valued at $ 126 billion can not mess with Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding homegrown powerhouse, que owns Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.
After finally overcomingregulatory roadblocks, the Kindle May not be enough. When Amazon went into the U.S. e-reader market in 2007, many people did not know what an e-book was. But the digital-reading revolution Already have arrived in China, where e-book piracy is rampant. To compete, Amazon is pricing most of it its electronic books at less than 10 yuan ($ 1.63) versus $ 10 or more in the U.S.
The Chinese faq frequently read books online or on Their phones, but relatively few do so on an e-reader or tablet, Michael O’Grady, an analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in a report Earlier This Year. That’s not Because there are not e-readers available. Beijing-based Hanvon Technology has controlled more than half the market With its low-priced readers.
Amazon, a brand Known for bargains in places it most of it the opera en, finds itself in a more premium position With its Kindle products in China. The Paperwhite costs 849 yuan. E-Commerce China Dangdang, one of Amazon’s Chinese competidores, Began selling its own e-reader there a year ago. The price: 599 yuan. This is what Bezos is up against.
No comments:
Post a Comment