Kobo and Livraria Cultura have just officially signed an agreement that will bring ebooks to Brazil at the end of October. The Kobo Touch e-Reader will be available for purchase at all 14 Livraria Cultura stores, as well as its website. The rest of Kobo’s latest devices may make the trek at the end of the year. The ebooks will be available to browse and purchase directly through the Kobo Touch e-Reader and via the Livraria Cultura website.
“We are enormously pleased to bring to Brazil our premium line of e-readers through this partnership with a strong brand like Livraria Cultura. We expect e-reading in Brazil to grow significantly over the next year and our partnership will bring to the Brazilian reader the beloved and robust Kobo e-Reading experience”, says Todd Humphrey, Executive Vice President, Business Development, Kobo.
“The choice of Kobo was something very natural. We wanted an open and very high quality platform. Moreover, we wanted a device that is a reference for users worldwide to give us the confidence to partner with our brand. Besides the device, which will be sold in Brazil with our signature, the partnership will increase our collection of ebooks. Together, Livraria Cultura and Kobo will offer nearly 3 million ebooks, with over 15,000 of them available in Portuguese”, says Sergio Herz, CEO of Livraria Cultura.
The ebook market in Brazil is shaping up to be the next battleground as Kobo and Amazon will be jostling for position. The market is increasing and the amount of ebooks that are available domestically has risen by 50% since the beginning of 2012. The majority of the population in Brazil has not gravitated towards the electronic versions of books yet, but this might change now that a major online retailer has entered the country. There is also no word if Kobo Writing Life will be available yet in Brazil.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
