Flipkart’s digital store, Flyte is now offering eBooks. The store currently features a selection of more than 100,000 books. eBooks bought from Flyte can only be read via the Flyte e-books s app, which is available for Android OS. A Windows 8 app is in the works, and is expected to be released soon.
Flyte is offering eBooks, starting at Rs.30, and offering 4,000 free titles – move aimed at enticing readers to try the new format. “We have a growing, tech-savvy reader base that is constantly on the go – and they are looking for options to buy and read their favourite books on their mobile devices instantly. In the US and European markets, which have been early adopters of eBooks, the market share for digital trade books is currently at 50 percent. In the U.S., the e-books market recently crossed $1 billion in annual sales,” says Sameer Nigam, VP, Digital at Flipkart.
Flyte eBooks app for Android allows users to instantly purchase, download and read eBooks on the go. There’s also a free sample of each book on the site/mobile app. Other notable features include ability to read each eBook on up to six devices, sync reading location, take notes, highlight text, search, add multiple bookmarks. You can download Flyte eBooks for Android here.
Flipkart’s venture into eBooks store comes days after their top rival Amazon (Junglee) had launched the Kindle eBook store. Flipkart had launched its digital store Flyte earlier this year. The digital store so far only focussed on music, and featured authentic MP3 downloads at affordable prices, starting at Rs. 6. Users can buy MP3s encoded at high quality 320kbps bitrate and are DRM free and can be played on any device. Furthermore, Flipkart allows you re-download a purchased song up to 4 more times (in case you accidentally lose your backup).