Tokyo — Sony Corp said on Thursday that it will expand its eReader digital book instrument into several new international markets this year. The company plans to hit the Asia-Pacific market with launches in Japan, China, and Australia, and further spread out throughout Europe by reaching countries such as Italy and Spain, as well as introduce a platform for newspapers, books, comics and magazines, challenging rival Apple Inc. a day before its iPad hits shelves in the country on Friday.
The Japanese electronics giant and maker of PlayStation games and Bravia flat TVs said it also plans to develop “one of the largest eBook distribution platforms in Japan,” with telecoms operator KDDI, the Asahi Shimbun company and Toppan printing company, it added.
Sony’s ebook eReader, which competes with Amazon.com’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, is being marketed in the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
“An e-book business does not make much sense if it does not come with enough content in terms of both quantity and quality … You have to build a system first to ensure that,” Sony Electronics Senior Vice President Fujio Noguchi told a news conference. “I do not think we are running behind.”
Sony Electronics is Sony’s U.S. electronics sales division.
Sony’s Reader will hit more global markets. (Credit:Sony) Click to enlarge.
Although the company said it will use existing relationships with retailers, publishers, and distributors to help push its Reader and make sure local e-book content is available for consumers in each region, the content distribution business will be open for other firms to join, and there will be multiple types of e-reader terminals from different companies, Sony said.
“In the years since we rolled out the first eReader, we have hit a global tipping point in digital reading with demand for and sales of the Reader dramatically increasing in 2009,” Steve Haber, president of Sony Electronics’ Digital Reading Business Division, said in a statement. “Sony’s strategy has always been to make the Reader a global product, and we will take a thoughtful approach to country expansion that will consider not just the hardware experience within these new countries but the content experience as well.”
The joint venture is to commence on or around July 1 and start services by the end of this year, with the four companies taking a 25 percent stake, they said in a joint statement.
The move comes a day before the launch of the iPad in Japan and other countries outside the United States, where print media face a steady decline in advertising and have turned to e-readers as a chance for new revenue.
“People’s familiarity of e-Books here has been enhanced rapidly,” Fujio Noguchi, senior vice president of Sony Electronics of the United States, told a joint news conference with his three partners.
“A big wave of e-Book businesses has been swelling around the world, and the tide has spread from North America to Europe and Asia,” Noguchi said. “This year will be defined as the first year of eBooks. Time is ripe.”
In revealing these new worldwide launches, Sony is attempting to play catch-up with its rival, the Amazon Kindle, which is already available in more than 100 countries around the world. Together, the Sony Reader and the Kindle have carved out the biggest chunk of the e-book industry. But other competitors continue to pop up.