Amazon has announced that its Kindle business in India grew over 200% year on year. With over 3 million eBooks available for download, the Kindle India store offers a large selection of titles from Indian and global authors including exclusive availability of all titles of Chetan Bhagat and Rupa Publications as eBooks.
With the vision of making every book ever written available to readers within 60 seconds, it is still day one for Kindle in India. Kindle devices as well as a large collection of eBooks are among the top gifts during the ongoing holidays in India. Here’s the year in review for eBook lovers.
eBook Collection
• Launch of Kindle Unlimited in India: Building on the success of eBook growth, Kindle Unlimited launched in September. Customers can freely read as much as they want from over one million Kindle books starting from ₹150 a month. It is a great way for all readers to enjoy books across genres of literature, fiction, health, productivity, business & economics, biographies, children books and many more including bestsellers and new releases available at an affordable price.
• Amazon also offers the entire set of 370+ titles from Lonely Planet through Kindle Unlimited. Readers now have the flexibility of downloading a targeted title when they travel to a particular country.
• Amazon partnered with Indian publishers like Rupa, Arihant, Westland, Orient, Grapevine, Jaico, and Srishti Publishers for thousands of Indian titles across genres. These include works from authors such as Amish Tripathi, Preeti Shenoy, and Robin Sharma.
Top Kindle Exclusives
• Prior to the launch of Amish Tripathi’s new book ‘Scion of Ikshvaku’, Amazon announced an exclusive sneak-peek. For the first time ever, readers were able to access a chapter from the book before its official launch.
• In August, Amazon announced exclusive eBook rights to all of Chetan Bhagat’s titles including his new book, ‘Making India Awesome’.
Enhancing the overall Kindle Experience
• Expansion of payment options: In March this year, Kindle announced additional payment options through local credit cards, debit cards, net banking and Amazon.in gift cards for purchases on the India Kindle Store.
• Kindle Reading app pre-loaded in a several popular devices like One Plus, Sony, and Micromax.
• Launch of Kindle Voyage: Kindle Voyage – the thinnest, most advanced Kindle ever, featuring a higher resolution, higher contrast display with a new adaptive front light and reimagined page turns was launched in March this year at the Amazon India Fashion Week. It is the most advanced eReader ever, crafted to offer the best reading experience.
• Launch of the New Kindle Paperwhite: In June, Amazon updated its most popular and best-selling Kindle globally with the highest resolution Paperwhite display, the exclusive Kindle font Bookerly and a new typesetting engine for a crisp & beautiful reading experience.
• Launch of Kindle in White: In November this year, Amazon introduced its Kindle in White.
• Expansion of offline channels: Kindle aggressively expanded its offline sales channel this year and is now available in over 700 offline stores including Croma, Reliance Digital, E-Zone & Vijay Sales across 23 cities