Amazon have downplayed rumours that their Kindle device is being discontinued in China.
Amazon downplay rumours of pulling the Kindle from their Chinese market
The tech giant - who launched their e-reader device back in 2007 and have since released multiple versions of the device - said that their device was “currently sold out in China" and although this led to media speculation that the Kindle was being discontinued in that market, Amazon have downplayed the rumours.
A company spokesperson told TechCrunch: "We remain committed to our customers in China. Customers can continue to purchase Kindle e-readers from offline and third-party online retailers."
Amazon’s Kindle store on JD.com - which is China’s second largest e-commerce platform - currently only has the Kindle 10 for sale whilst other models—Paperwhite, Oasis, and Kids Edition—are out of stock
It comes after Amazon reportedly parted ways with their Chinese developers and disbanded the device team based there back in November 2021, according to a post on Chinese outlet BKEconomy.
In a claim posted to microblogging site Weibo, BKEconomy said: "The Kindle Tmall official flag is closed, the JD official flag is out of stock, and the Chinese hardware team has been laid off. Is Kindle going to continue in the Chinese market?"
A publishing industry insider hinted that the market for e-books in China has been different from the rest of the world from the outset, claiming that they are "constrained in the topics they can cover."
The source told TechCrunch: "If you look at bestseller lists in 90% of the world, e-books are — at least at the top of the stack — equivalent to digitalized versions of traditional books. In China, however, traditionally published books, like traditionally published longer-form video content such as TV and movies, are not very interesting because the majority of them come from state-owned publishing or content houses that are constrained in the topics they can cover."