Better late than never? Amazon today has started to sell the Kindle DX, the larger of its e-readers, outside the U.S. The launch comes three months after the smaller device went on sale internationally, and nearly two years after the first of the devices hit the U.S. market.
Like the smaller-sized Kindle, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) has opted to run the DX on mobile networks from AT&T’s roaming partners, rather than cut deals with operators country-by-country. Not yet clear which UK networks are AT&T (NYSE: T) roaming partners or what those deals look like. “We’re not providing additional details beyond our relationship with AT&T, since it’s seamless to our customers – no annual contract, no monthly fees, no hunting for a hotspot,” is how one Amazon.co.uk spokesperson put it to us.
It will use 3G where available to give access to some 320,000 books and more than 100 newspapers.
But while it has worked to get some non-English content into the Kindle store, Amazon has not gone very local in its sales pitch: it is still redirecting international buyers through to its U.S. portal, listing prices for the two e-readers in U.S. dollars and promoting them in English. (Amazon has not returned calls for comment on this. We will update this if they do.) “Kindle is currently offered on Amazon.com only; and not sold through Amazon.co.uk,” is all the spokesperson for Amazon.co.uk will say on this.
As with U.S. Kindlers, international users are shielded from network costs for downloading books but it still costs several dollars more to download books and other publications outside the U.S., and other network usage, for example for web browsing, incurs charges. The company has remained silent on actual sales figures for the devices.
It’s worth watching how the Kindle plays against the many other e-readers launching in the year ahead. Given the heavy emphasis on English-language content, Amazon will be looking to the UK market for strong uptake.
But in the UK, operators are not strangers to subsidies for devices, offering free mobile handsets, netbooks, gaming devices and set-top boxes, as a way of luring users to their networks. It wouldn’t be far-fetched, then, to expect eReaders to come into the free game, too. Will Kindle be able to keep up?
The DX will retail for $489 (£305) and is now on sale in over 100 countries, to start shipping on January 19.
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