SEATTLE, WA – April 5, 2012 – (NASDAQ: AMZN) – Amazon.com, Inc. today announced a new Spanish-language eBook store within the Amazon.com Kindle Store, “eBooks Kindle en Español” (www.amazon.com/tiendakindle ), along with additional features specially implemented for U.S. Spanish-speaking customers like extensive help pages, and phone and email customer support in Spanish. U.S. customers can now shop for Spanish-language books in the new store on Amazon.com, or set any Kindle device to access a customized shopping experience designed for books in Spanish. eBooks Kindle en Español offers customers the most Spanish-language bestsellers, as measured by Nielsen, including “El Alquimista” by Paulo Coelho, “Cien años de soledad” by Gabriel García Márquez and “Juegos del Hambre” by Suzanne Collins. The store has over 30,000 titles in total, including the exclusive nonfiction work, “El Libro de los Manuales,” from iconic Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, the best-selling Spanish-language author of all time on Amazon.com. The store also includes books from Nobel Prize winners Gabriel García Márquez, Camilo Jose Cela and Mario Vargas Llosa, popular titles from best-selling authors such as Julia Navarro, Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Isabel Allende, over a thousand free classics in Spanish, and exclusive Kindle Singles in Spanish. In addition to the new Spanish-language eBook store, the new $79 Kindle and many free Kindle reading apps can be easily customized for complete Spanish-language reading and navigation, including popular highlights and other social features.
“We’re excited to introduce Spanish language storefronts on all Kindles, as well as a dedicated store for our Spanish-speaking customers in the U.S.,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. “We expect our Spanish-speaking customers to enjoy both the newly-added books in Spanish, and the improved shopping and reading experience—including dedicated customer service in Spanish—that we’ve added to eBooks Kindle en Español. And we’re looking forward to continued expansion of our store for Spanish language readers around the world.”
eBooks Kindle en Español includes:
• All of the Spanish-language Nielsen best sellers available as eBooks in the United States, and 65 of the top 100 Spanish-language print best sellers from Amazon.com
• The largest representation of Mexican authors, including Jose Emilio Pacheco, Carlos Monsivais and Sergio Pitol
• Kindle Singles in Spanish, including Singles by best-selling authors Kurt Vonnegut and Susan Orlean
• An exclusive selection of Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go books in Spanish
• Compilations of articles from “El Pais,” including exclusive pieces from Mexican journalists writing about Mexican current affairs
• Subscriptions to 14 leading Latin American newspapers such as El Universal and La Nacion
• Popular English-language books translated into Spanish, such as the Hunger Games series, the Twilight series, “Steve Jobs,” “The Help,” and books by authors Stephen King, Nora Roberts and Joel Osteen
“As one of the first authors to make my work available digitally, and an author whose entire catalog is available digitally, I’m very excited that my Spanish-speaking audience will now be able to buy my books in the Kindle Store with this improved experience,” said Paulo Coelho. “I believe that many more people will have access to great stories from diverse authors with this improved digital experience, and Kindle readers will also now get to read my new work, ‘El Libro de los Manuales,’ available exclusively in Spanish from the Kindle Store. I am grateful to all of my Hispanic readers in the United States for their ongoing support to my entire canon.”
“Humankind needs stories the way it needs oxygen and the impact of ebooks is formidable and is transforming the entire book industry, as well as readers,” said internationally best-selling author Isabel Allende.
Independent authors and publishers can also use the KDP website (http://kdp.amazon.com) and select “Spanish” to make their books available in the eBooks Kindle en Español store, as well as more than 100 countries worldwide, while continuing to own the rights to their books.
Kindle books are “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” with free Kindle reading apps available for the most popular devices and platforms, including iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac and Android-based devices. Amazon Whispersync automatically syncs your place across all devices, so you can pick up reading where you left off. Plus, with Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books you purchase from the Kindle Store, and any notes or annotations you create, are automatically backed up online in your Kindle library on Amazon.com where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.
In order to set their Kindle store experience to Spanish, U.S. customers simply change their language to “Spanish” under Store Language Preference in Manage Your Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/myk). Customers can start shopping eBooks Kindle en Español at www.amazon.com/tiendakindle.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, www.amazon.it, and www.amazon.es. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management’s expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
