Apple To Launch New eBook Service For Japan

By: Talha Bhatti  |   January 1st, 2013   |   Apple, Business, News, Smartphones, Tablets

A Japanese financial news outlet, Nikkei, has reported that California based Apple is launching an ebook service in Japan which will be stocked with titles from top Japanese publishers. The maker of the iPhone will begin the sale of the local content to be consumed on both iPhones and iPads.

 

According to the latest statistics for units shipped from April to September, Apple’s iPad tablet is the leader of the sector and holds 60% of the Japanese market. Apple has already selected 80,000 titles that are currently owned by Japanese publishers, including big names like Kodansha, Shogakukan and Kadokawa.

 

The launch of the ebook services should be boosted by Apple’s iPad popularity in the Pacific nation. However, Apple has tried to enter the ebook market in Japan before and failed. In 2010 the American firm failed to reach an agreement with Japanese publishers and was unable to launch its ebook store.

 

The Nikkei predicts the Japan’s current ebook market is 70 billion yen and will grow to 200 billion yen by 2016. This should be in part due to Apple’s entry into the sector. Even though Japan had publishing industry revenues of $22.5 billion in 2011, e-readers have not been able to be introduced to the mainstream.

 

Devices from local firms like Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba did not catch on while foreign firms chose not to enter the market. Non-Japanese firms believed that the task of developing software to handles the Japanese language, Japanese characters and the vertical text was too difficult.

 

Amazon broke the trend in October of 2012 and started pre-orders of Japanese-language Kindle called the Paperwhite while stocking the Kindle Store with 50,000 Japanese titles. Amazon and Apple should expect a major fight from face Local firm Rakuten. The companies Kobo eReader sells for $100 USD and has 2.5 million titles on sale.

Source: TechCrunch