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German book chains Weltbild and Hugendubel have reacted swiftly to Amazon's announcement of the Kindle Fire Germany launch by releasing a next generation e-reader.
The two chains, which are owned by DBH, launched their new eBook Reader 4 yesterday (11th September), with the device retailing at the very competitive price of €59,99.
On 6th September Amazon announced its first foray into the German tablet market with the Kindle Fire HD, and reduced the price for its cheapest Kindle to €79 from €99.
Weltbild’s managing director Dr Klaus Driever has called the cheapest reader available in Germany an “uncomplicated” device that will “perfectly suit the heavy reader”. The eBook Reader 4 is available in the company’s two online shops, weltbild.de and hugendubel.de, as well as in all 400 branches. The launch will be accompanied by a "massive marketing campaign” including TV advertising and significant presence in-store.
The new reader is from TrekStor, has a 6in display and uses digital ink technology. It supports all popular formats, weighs 216g and can hold up to 2,000 titles. Thirty excerpts from the latest bestsellers have been pre-installed. The two chains claim to have the largest range of e-books in Germany, totalling more than 280,000 titles.
According to Driever, the e-book market in Germany has quickly gathered speed and is continuing to grow fast. By mid-summer 2012 Weltbild and Hugendubel had sold two million e-books, generating over 10% of their turnover digitally in fiscal 2011/12.