Amazon Kindle Now for Sale to Customers in More Than 100 Countries

Over 200,000 English-language books now available to readers around the globe

Sydney, Australia—October 7, 2009—Kindle is Amazon’s most wished for, most gifted, and #1 bestselling product, but prior to today it has been available only to U.S. customers.  Now for the first time, Kindle is available to customers around the world.  Kindle wirelessly downloads books, magazines, newspapers and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution 6-inch (15.24 cm) electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper.  Kindle utilises the same 3G wireless technology as advanced cell phones, so you never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot.  Readers around the world can pre-order Kindle today for US$279.00 at www.amazon.com/kindle and it will begin shipping October 19.

“We have millions of customers in countries all over the world who read English-language books,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO.  “Kindle enables these customers to think of a book and download it wirelessly in less than 60 seconds.”

The Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) offers international customers over 200,000 English-language books, including new releases and New York Times Bestsellers, which are typically priced less than physical editions.  Over 1,000 different rights-holders now have books available in the Kindle Store, including leading publishers Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Faber, Hachette, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Lonely Planet, Penguin, Profile Books, Quercus, Simon & Schuster and Wiley. 

“Penguin is a leading supplier of digital books to Kindle in the U.S. and we are delighted to be extending that successful partnership to the rest of the world,” said John Makinson, CEO of Penguin, the world’s largest publisher of English language books.   “The publishing industry is experiencing explosive growth in digital book sales in the U.S. and we hope to stimulate digital buying elsewhere by making our content widely available on new devices.”

“At Faber and Faber we are always seeking new ways of finding readers for the writers we publish, so we’re excited by Kindle’s launch beyond the U.S., and to be developing our strong partnership with Amazon beyond physical books,” said Faber and Faber Ltd Publisher and Chief Executive Stephen Page.

Over 85 top U.S. and international newspapers and magazines are also available in the Kindle Store for single purchase or subscription.  Many international newspapers are available in the Kindle Store for the first time, including La Stampa (Italy), El País (Spain), El Universal (Mexico), O Globo (Brazil), The Daily Telegraph (UK), joining top papers such as The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Le Monde (France), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany) and The Washington Post.  Newspaper and magazine subscriptions are auto-delivered wirelessly to Kindle. 

Customers around the world can now enjoy the same features that have helped make Kindle the #1 bestselling product on Amazon.com, including:

• Slim and Trim: At just under a centimetre thin (0.91 mm) and weighing just over 280 grams, Kindle is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback.

• 3G Wireless:  Readers living in or travelling to Kindle’s wireless coverage areas can wirelessly shop at the Kindle Store, download books in less than 60 seconds, automatically receive newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and receive personal documents—all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing.  Customers who are not in the coverage area can quickly transfer content to Kindle over USB. 

• Reads Like Real Paper: Kindle’s 6-inch (15.24 cm) electronic ink display reads like printed words on paper because the screen works using real ink and doesn’t use a backlight, eliminating the eyestrain and glare associated with other electronic displays.

• Stores Up To 1,500 Books: Kindle’s 2 GB of memory holds up to 1,500 books and Kindle books are automatically backed up by Amazon so customers can re-download titles in their library.

• Read For Weeks On A Single Charge: Kindle’s electronic paper display sips battery power so users can read for over two weeks with wireless turned off and up to four days on a single charge with wireless on.

• Read-To-Me: With the experimental Text-To-Speech feature, Kindle can read most newspapers, magazines and books out loud.

• Automatically Syncs With Kindle and Kindle Compatible Devices: Amazon’s “Whispersync” technology automatically syncs customers’ last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights across Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle compatible devices like Kindle for iPhone.

• Wirelessly Receive and Read Personal Documents:  Wirelessly send, receive, and read personal documents in a variety of formats such as Microsoft Word and PDF.

• Instant Dictionary Lookup:  Kindle comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary and over 250,000 definitions that appear instantly at the bottom of the page.

• Choose Text Size:  Kindle lets readers customise their reading preference by providing six different text sizes. 

• Bookmarks, Notes, and Highlights:  By using the QWERTY keyboard Kindle users can add annotations to text, as well as highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use