Amazon will pull its Kindle e-book store out of China by June 2023, putting an end to the firm’s nine-year venture in the market, the company announced.
A Kindle store in Beijing, China / Photo credit: Shutterstock
“Amazon will stop the operation of Kindle e-book store in China a year from now, on June 30, 2023,” the statement said. This means no new purchases can be made after that time, though customers can still continue to download purchased books for one year beyond that.
Amazon brought its e-book business to China in December 2012. In the years that followed, it enjoyed swift market adoption and garnered a loyal following in the country. As of 2017, China was already the world’s biggest market for Kindle, accounting for more than 40% of the device sales worldwide.
However, local rivals have caught up rapidly – Chinese ecommerce platforms and social media firms such as JD, Dangdang, and WeChat have all set up their own e-book businesses.
Earlier this year, rumors about Kindle’s possible struggle in China emerged, with its flagship stores on Tmall and JD either closing down or scaling back operations.
The Kindle exit is the latest in an exodus of big tech firms in China. Last year, US internet giant Yahoo shut down all services in the country. Microsoft also pulled out its career-oriented social network LinkedIn from China. Both cited a “challenging environment” as the cause.
Amazon, for its part, has withdrawn its marketplace business from China since 2019 after failing to contend with local players. The company’s remaining ventures in the country are in the cross-border ecommerce, advertising, and cloud services sectors.
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Editing by Miguel Cordon and Jaclyn Tiu
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