60 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections $4.7 billion for 2011. In 2012, and after the acquisition of Kobo, Rakuten’s head, Hiroshi Mikitani, has announced plans to confront Amazon in a competition on global e-commerce (quoted in Handelsblatt, January 22, 2012). As of September 2012, Kobo has expanded beyond Canada globally as an ebook platform, by establishing localized platforms in Brazil, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand, Taiwan, UK, and the US, o ering a catalog of 2.5 million ebook, newspaper, and magazine titles, and purchases by customers from 170 countries worldwide. It claims to be “one of the world’s fastest-growing ereading services.” In many markets, Kobo is partnering with local retail- ers, notably with Fnac in France, Libris BLZ in the Netherlands, Libreka in Germany, and Mondadori in Italy. In Japan, it started to develop an ebook userbase ahead of Amazon, in summer 2012 (The Bookseller, August 16, 2012). For the US, and later on also in other markets, Kobo positioned itself as an ebook partner for independent bookstores, signing respective agreements with associa- tions (ABA in the US, and the British AB), and replacing Google in that position. In summer 2012, Kobo also kickstarted a self-publish- ing portal, branded as “Kobo Writing Life”. In early fall, Kobo launche globally a new generation of devices, including a low-cost “Mini” at €79.99, and a “glow”lit E Ink black and white device as well as a tablet. Self-Publishing As recently as summer 2011, a headline such as the following could still appear: “German Self-Publishing, Where Innovation Meets Angst,” pointing to the coun- try’s aversion to risk (Amanda DeMarco, Publishing Perspectives, August 4, 2011). A year later, an initially self-published title, Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (albeit now in an edition published by Random House) is by far the de ning book event of 2012 in Germany just as well as almost anywhere else. And a German self-pub- lished author made the headlines with Liebe, Sex und third-party online platforms for ordering printed books. Google claims to have 3 million ebook titles available on Google Play, mostly free of charge, with hundreds of thousands available for purchase (http://bit.ly/T1FrMx). Similar to the iTunes Store, however, the Google Play Store is currently available only in a limited number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the UK, and the US. So far, Google’s policy has been to roll out book services one country at a time, often with a long interval in between (UK in September 2011, Italy in May 2012, Germany and Spain in June 2012, France in July 2012) and delays attributed to long and tedious negotiations with publishers over rights. (For the example of France, see Livres Hebdo, July 18, 2012.) In 2012, Google started to venture into the device market in cooperation with selected hardware manufac- turers (in this case, Asus) by launching a tablet computer with an Android operating system, branded the Nexus 7. In the US, Google had a long partnership program with the Association of American Booksellers (ABA), which it cancelled in April 2012, to expire by January 31, 2013. In the meantime, Kobo stepped in to replace Google in this regard. Kobo Kobo was launched in 2009 by the Canadian bookstore chain Indigo Books & Music Inc. (TSX: IDG), which was founded in 1996 by Heather Reisman and her husband and majority owner Gerry Schwartz. Kobo was at rst a business division, meant to cater to the emerging ebook market, then spun o as a separate business entity, and ultimately sold to Rakuten (JASDAQ: 4755), the largest e-commerce company in Japan. Rakuten has recently seen aggressive and forceful global growth by acquiring multiple related online marketplaces, notably Buy.com (US), Priceminister (France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria (now Rakuten Germany), and Play.com (UK), as well as an investment in the leading Russian online bookshop Ozon.ru. Rakuten has reported revenues of
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