Amazon began taking pre-orders on Wednesday for its Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, which starts with a price tag of 8,480 yen, and Kindle Fire tablet, which has a base price of 12,800 yen. Both devices will be available from November 19.
The online retailer also said it will start offering Kindle e-book titles on its Japanese website from October 25, with a selection of more than 50,000 Japanese-language titles, including books from local publishers such as Kodansha Ltd and Kadokawa Group Holding.
The launch pits Amazon against local players Rakuten Inc, which debuted its Kobo e-reader device in July, and Sony as well as Apple Inc and Google Inc, in competing for digital content market share in Japan.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
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