Over 200,000 English-language books now available to readers around
the globe
Kindle is Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) 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:
Slim and Trim: At just over a third of an inch thin (0.36
inches) and weighing just over 10 ounces, Kindle is pencil thin and
lighter than a typical paperback.
3G Wireless: Readers living in or traveling to Kindle’s
wireless coverage areas can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download
books in less than 60 seconds, automatically receive newspaper and
magazine subscriptions, and receive personal documents—all without a
PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing. Customers who are not in the coverage
area can quickly transfer content to Kindle over USB.
Reads Like Real Paper: Kindle’s 6-inch electronic ink display
reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real
ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare
associated with other electronic displays.
Stores Up To 1,500 Books: Kindle’s 2 GB of memory holds up to
1,500 books and Kindle books are automatically backed up by Amazon so
customers can re-download titles in their library.
Read For Weeks On A Single Charge: Kindle’s electronic paper
display sips battery power so users can read for over two weeks with
wireless turned off and up to four days on a single charge with
wireless on.
Read-To-Me: With the experimental Text-To-Speech feature,
Kindle can read most newspapers, magazines and books out loud.
Automatically Syncs With Kindle and Kindle Compatible Devices: Amazon’s
“Whispersync” technology automatically syncs customers’ last page
read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across Kindle, Kindle DX, and
Kindle compatible devices like Kindle for iPhone.
Wirelessly Receive and Read Personal Documents: Wirelessly
send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats
such as Microsoft Word and PDF.
Instant Dictionary Lookup: Kindle comes with the New Oxford
American Dictionary and over 250,000 definitions that appear
instantly at the bottom of the page.
Choose Text Size: Kindle lets readers customize their reading
preference by providing six different text sizes.
Bookmarks, Notes, and Highlights: By using the QWERTY keyboard
Kindle users can add annotations to text, as well as highlight and
clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use.
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.