Slowly but steadily, Amazon is making its presence felt in India. Along with its marketplace Amazon.in, the American online retail giant has also launched its line-up of Kindle e-readers and tablets in India. Amazon has admitted that its e-reader business is still in its early stages in India with David Limp, the head of Amazon’s Kindle division stating to The Hindu that although it was an exciting beginning for the company, it was also looking at bringing down the prices of the Kindles in the market. Currently Amazon is selling three main variants of the Kindle in India- the Kindle with e-ink display for Rs. 5,999, the Kindle Paperwhite for Rs. 10,999 and Rs. 13,999 (3G) and the Kindle Fire HD for Rs. 15,999 and Rs. 21,999 (8.9-in display).
Limp said that although the Rs. 6,000 Kindle was very popular among Indian consumers, Amazon had also witnessed a demand for the Paperwhite at the same price. Limp added that the price drop may happen in due course of time but till then, Amazon was looking to target various price segments with different devices.
With respect to the Indian market for books, Limp said that Amazon was still trying to understand it and looking for important categories of books to target. He quoted the example of Amazon’s experience in Japan where Manga turned out to be a hugely popular and important category for consumers. “Once we optimised for that, we saw success (in Japan)… we’re looking for an equivalent of that in India,” he explained.
Source: The Hindu