China sales of Amazon's Kindle have 'exceeded expectations'
Amazon's Kindle e-readers have found an audience in China, despite a market filled with competition and piracy
Six months after entering the Chinese market, Amazon’s Kindle tablets have made a profit.
Introduced to mainland audiences on June 7, the Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle Fire tablets originally launched for 849 yuan (HK$1,084) and 1,499 yuan (HK$1,914) respectively.
In the half a year since their release, both devices have had to contend with a crowded electronics marketplace filled with competition from Apple, Samsung and Lenovo – all companies boasting greater renown in China, where Amazon is a relatively niche player.
Furthermore, the Kindle’s main function as an e-reader that allows users to purchase books from the Kindle electronic bookstore, which currently carries over 60,000 titles in China, has always been a shaky sell in the mainland’s environment of rampant online piracy.
But according to Bai Juyi, vice president of Amazon’s Kindle operations in China, sales of the company’s e-readers have “exceeded expectations … and proven very encouraging”.
In an interview with Sina Technology, Bai declined to disclose actual sales figures, but revealed that Kindle’s business model had been “profitable”, although sales in China were obviously smaller than Amazon’s success in other regions, particularly the United States.