Sony Expanding Reader Distribution to More Countries By Year-End

Sony will expand sales of its Reader devices to Australia, China, Italy, Japan and Spain by year-end, it said Thursday. Sony will disclose “general availability, local pricing and pre-order dates … at a later date” for the new markets, the company said. Separately, Acer disclosed plans about its first e-reader, the LumiRead, also without pricing and ship dates.

Not immediately clear was whether Sony will field the same e-reader models that it markets in the U.S. in the new markets, or the status of Reader supplies in current markets. They also include Austria, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the U.K. Sony didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The biggest opportunity for” the e-book and e-reader market “this year lies overseas as the [e-book] phenomenon catches on across the globe,” Sony said. Especially strong demand is expected in Asian markets, it said. China e-reader sales are expected to increase from 800,000 in 2009 to 3 million this year, accounting for 20 percent of the worldwide market, and Japanese e-book sales passed $500 million in 2009, it said. DisplaySearch predicted that China will become the world’s largest e-reader market by 2015, Sony said.

In each new market, Sony will “leverage its relationships with local retailers, publishers and distributors to introduce the Reader along with a host of local content to help ensure the best possible reading experience,” it said. “Sony’s strategy has always been to make the Reader a global product and we'll take a thoughtful approach to country expansion that will consider not just the hardware experience within these new countries but the content experience as well,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony Electronics’ Digital Reading Business Division. Sony recently reached the 10 million e-book download mark, it said. The company entered the category in 2006, initially in the U.S. only.

To prepare for the Japan Reader launch, Sony will establish a joint venture with Toppan Printing, KDDI and The Asahi Shimbun Co., “with the intention of transitioning into” an e-book distribution company that Sony said “will build and manage a common distribution platform for digital reading content in Japan.” The company will be started in July and intends to start content distribution services by year-end, it said.

Acer’s LumiRead, meanwhile, will be one of various new devices from that company integrating its new clear.fi home networking system, it said. The e-reader will also feature a 6-inch display and be able to hold up to 1,500 e-books on its onboard 2 GB of flash memory, Acer said. That can be expanded via a MicroSD card, the company said. An included scanner will allow users to scan ISBN codes so they can create their own wish lists and search supported online libraries and book stores, it said.

Acer has “already signed” deals with Barnes & Noble, Germany’s Libri.de online book retailer and China’s Founder to provide localized content in English, Chinese and German, the manufacturer said. French and Italian readers will be able to soon read e-books in their languages also, “thanks to other agreements that are almost ready to be formalized,” Acer said. It also unveiled an Android-based Stream smartphone that it said features HDMI-out for connection to a TV, that “can support up to 720p video quality” and provides the ability to listen to music with “Dolby Mobile quality."

Also on the e-reader front, Barnes & Noble launched a free BN e-reader application for the iPad that the retailer said offers “the most personalized and easy-to-use” e-reading experience for the device’s owners.