Amazon Kindle on sale in over 100 countries

SEATTLE, USA: 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 six-inch electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle utilizes 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 $279 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 US 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 US 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.