Walmart is upping the ante in their fierce rivalry with Amazon by partnering with Kobo to provide customers eBooks and audio books directly. This news will undoubtedly affect Amazon, who currently maintains dominance over the industry with Kindle and Audible.
By partnering with Kobo, Walmart has established itself as a huge force to be reckoned with in the book industry. Perhaps a force strong enough to disrupt Amazon’s reign as the new deal will give Walmart access to over 6 million new book titles. Walmart’s deal with Kobo also will allow them to develop new eReaders and an app for customers to access their Kobo eBooks and audio books.
This is great news for Kobo as they are huge international distributor of digital books but have been left behind as they previously tried to expand into the US with the now-defunct Borders bookstore. This will allow them to tap into the US market with a big splash.
This news is unsurprising for those who are aware of Walmart’s presence in the book industry. The retailer is an overlooked source of print book sales as they’ve accounted for over 40% of print book sales in the last few years. With numbers like that and their new catalog of digital books, Walmart seems poised to become a major power in the publishing world in the coming years.
Read more about Walmart and Kobo’s deal at Good eReader.