Amazon launches Kindle, Kindle Store and self-publishing platform in Mexico - GigaOM

Aug. 29, 2013 – 6:35 AM PDT Aug. 29, 2013 – 6:35 AM PDT

Kindle is now available in Mexico: On Thursday, Amazon launched the Mexican Kindle Store. It’s also selling the basic Kindle and front-lit Kindle Paperwhite through Mexican chain store Gandhi. And it opened its digital self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, up to Mexicans.

“The vast majority of Mexicans do not have access to a bookstore in their town, so we’re happy to launch the Mexico Kindle Store today and bring a huge bookstore with over 2 million titles to anyone with an Internet connection,” Pedro Huerta, director of Kindle Content for Latin America, said in a statement.

The Mexican Kindle Store includes over 70,000 Spanish-language ebooks, including some in Mexican indigenous languages ??like Nahuatl. As an introductory offer, Amazon is selling over 1,000 ebooks for MXN $ 9 or less (USD $ 0.68).

The Kindle e-readers are only available at Gandhi stores now, not through Amazon’s website. The basic Kindle will retail for MXN $ 1,399 (USD $ 105) and the Kindle Paperwhite for MXN $ 2,399 (USD $ 180).

I haven’t been able to track down concrete statistics on e-reading in Mexico, but ebook market share there is small: In 2012, only about a quarter of households had an internet connection, though eMarketer estimated that 44.5 percent of Mexicans would be online in some way by 2013. That rate of internet penetration is lower than the rest of Latin America, and it’s why e-reading companies like Amazon have often concentrated on other Latin American countries first. The Kindle Brazil store, for example, opened last year.

Subscriber Content

?

Subscriber Content comes from GigaOM Pro, a revolutionary approach to market research without the high price tag. Visit any of our reports to subscribe.

• Forecast: the evolution of the e-book market December 2011
• The connected planet: Smartphones aren’t the only player September 2011