HONG KONG: Amazon.com is introducing Kindle, its wireless electronic reader, to Hong Kong and the mainland, as it expands marketing of the device into more than 100 countries and regions and intensifies a turf battle for the burgeoning digital book market.

The move, announced on Tuesday, gives the world's largest online retailer the widest global reach among its competitors, including chief rival Sony.

The Kindle will sell for US$279 outside the US, including in most European countries.

Amazon also announced it would cut prices for its US-only Kindle by 13 per cent to US$259 from US$299, bringing its cost closer to its rivals and US$100 lower than it was a year ago.

Amazon - which regards the Kindle as a pivotal growth driver - said over 200,000 English-language books from a host of publishers as well as over 85 international and US newspapers and magazines will be available on the international device, which begins shipping October 19.

"Our vision for Kindle is every book ever printed, in print or out of print, in every language, all available within 60 seconds," chief executive Jeff Bezos said.

"That's a multi-decade vision," said Bezos, visiting a Kindle office in the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino.

Analysts have pondered the likelihood of Amazon developing the Kindle into a tablet-like device for tasks like e-mailing, texting and surfing the Web, thus competing with devices reportedly being developed by Apple.

But Bezos reiterated his intention to optimise the reading experience, saying the company rejects compromise, whether it be a touchscreen that affects legibility or computer displays that eat up too much power.

At the same time, Amazon is working on making Kindle digital books available on more devices. Besides the Kindle, those books can now be accessed on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

"We want you to read your Kindle books on laptops and smartphones, anything with an installed base," Bezos said. He said he was not "in principle" against making the works available on rival devices like Sony's, but was focused on platforms with "large installed bases".

E-readers are expected by some to be the hottest gadget this holiday season and Bezos said he had "a lot of confidence" that it would be a "great holiday quarter for Kindle".

Amazon, which introduced the Kindle in 2007, has until now made it available only in the United States, where it sold a basic version for US$299 and a larger one geared toward newspapers for US$489. The Kindle is sold exclusively on Amazon.com.

The international version includes technology allowing it to operate in each market, but is otherwise identical to the second iteration of the Kindle - which can store up to 1,500 books, has a text-to-speech feature, and can read PDF files and allow users to make annotations.

"There is a big demand for English language books all over the world," said Bezos, adding that it would be available in every continent except Antarctica.

"We apologise for that omission. We'll work on that," he quipped. Amazon has an agreement with AT&T wireless for the international version, under which the carrier handles global network relationships, Bezos said. The new device is designed to work with the globally popular 3G GSM standard.

Electronic readers, made by a growing number of companies, including Sony, which was first to market the reading device, allow users to read content on a paper-book sized tablet that downloads content digitally.

Sony's Reader - whose newest US$399 version is about to hit the market, with wireless and a touch screen - is available in North America, Britain and a handful of European countries.

China Daily/Reuters

(HK Edition 10/08/2009 page4)