AllThingsD » e-books

Japan's Rakuten Set to Challenge Amazon With Help From Kobo

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:40:13 +0000

Who is Amazon’s biggest competitor? It may be a Japanese company you’ve never heard of.

Rakuten is set on challenging Amazon’s global dominance by appealing to the third-party merchants Amazon works with today and by growing it’s digital content business to compete with the Kindle.

We recently learned about the company’s strategy through the eyes of Neel Grover, the CEO of Buy.com, Rakuten’s online shopping subsidiary in the U.S.

For now, Rakuten is admittedly Amazon’s much smaller competitor, though it is dominant in Japan.

The publicly held company is worth $14.5 billion compared to Amazon’s $85 billion market capitalization, and it pales in comparison to Amazon’s mass in the U.S. Buy.com is ranked 410th here versus Amazon’s sixth-place standing, according to Compete.

But Grover said Rakuten has a two-part plan for going up against Amazon.

First, it will target and partner with third-party resellers and merchants.

Amazon does this, too, but often ends up competing with the merchants because it has its own warehouses and products that it is selling, he said.

“Oftentimes Amazon will compete with the retailer. [Third-party merchants] teach Amazon what to buy and sell, which is ultimately not good for the merchant,” he said.

Rakuten, on the other hand, does not own any warehouses or any inventory itself and instead gives retailers — brick and mortar or e-commerce — the tools and traffic to support their own businesses.

In May 2010, Rakuten acquired Buy.com.

“I sought out Rakuten. … I thought their model was one that would give us a unique differentiator in the U.S. and we could learn and bring their model to our site and customers,” Grover said. “We are still in the final stages of transforming, and it’s taken a bit of time to get it transformed.”

But, he confidently added, “It will win out in the long-term.”

A similar approach is being taken by eBay, another e-commerce giant in the U.S.

The second part of Rakuten’s plan is to go after Amazon’s growing digital business, spanning music, e-books and other content.

In November, the Japanese company purchased Kobo, a runner-up in the e-reader race behind the Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. It paid $315 million in cash for the Canadian company.

Rakuten is banking on the Kobo in assisting with its move into providing downloadable media to consumers, starting with e-books.

At the time of the acquisition, Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis told All Things D that Rakuten will give Kobo the financial backing to grow internationally, as well as compete in the U.S.

“The U.S. is absolutely important. It’s fundamental. We have millions of U.S. users today, and we plan to grow that substantially, and internationally it represents a big opportunity as well,” he said.

Earlier this month, Buy.com started linking to Kobo from its site, so that consumers have the option of buying a physical copy of a book or a digital version. Other integration efforts are also under way.

It also wants to get into other digital content, like music. Back in 1999, Buy.com was one of the original sites to have a digital music store, but Grover said it was a pretty poor experience because of all the restrictions that record labels were mandating. A lot of that has now changed.

“We are definitely looking as a group at all digital content. … We are looking at different solutions, but today we have not continued on with our initial music store,” he said.

As with Kobo and Buy.com, acquisitions are always an option, he said.

“We’ll continue to look at everything that would make our business better. It hasn’t been shy over the past two years. We have a global vision to create an e-commerce marketplace offering all goods, and we continue to see that grow.”

And going up against Amazon, some serious growth is what Rakuten and Buy.com will need.

No More Pencils, No More Books? (Comic)

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:47:04 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site.

Online Commerce Trend: More Spending, Smaller Purchases

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:22:03 +0000

The average checkout size is shrinking, even though more people spent more money online this holiday season.

In November and December, the number of online transactions increased by 37 percent, and overall sales jumped by 25 percent. But the average ticket size declined by 9 percent, according to Chase Paymentech, which analyzes information across the top 50 e-commerce retailers.

As it turns out, more consumers are turning to e-commerce for more of their everyday spending, rather than reserving online purchases for big-ticket items.

Here are Chase’s three reasons for the decline:

More consumers are purchasing digital media, which has a lower price point than most physical goods — MP3s cost less than CDs, e-books cost less than paperbacks, and apps cost less than game cartridges.
Prices for popular electronics, such as tablets, e-readers and TVs, are falling.
More retailers are offering free shipping, which eliminates the incentive to fill carts to reach a free-shipping threshold.

EBay, which is the first major e-commerce provider to report Q4 results, confirmed it was also seeing the trend. The company’s payments division, PayPal, reported smaller transactions during the fourth quarter across the merchants it serves.

John Donahoe, eBay’s CEO, explained in an interview that the biggest driver of that trend was eBay’s acquisition of Zong, a mobile payments provider that powers the sale of digital goods. In addition, Donahoe said retailers, including eBay, heavily discounted products in order to drive more purchases this holiday.

Amazon, which is the leading e-commerce provider, also said that it is selling a lot of low-priced digital goods, ranging from e-books to MP3s.

Historically, the company has said that Christmas is the largest day of digital sales on Amazon.com, followed by Dec. 26. In 2010, from Christmas Eve through Dec. 30, Amazon customers purchased three times more digital content — including Kindle books, magazines, movies, TV shows, music and digital games — compared to the weekly average for the year.

Despite transactions declining overall, Chase identified two exceptions: Apparel and footwear rose 6 percent; toys rose 10 percent year over year.

(Amazon photo courtesy of thisisbossi)

E-Book Readers Face Sticker Shock

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:00:44 +0000

Cheap new e-readers are expected to be one of the hottest gifts this holiday season. But new owners of Kindles and Nooks may be in for sticker shock on Christmas morning: The price gap between the print and e-versions of some top sellers has now narrowed to within a few dollars — and in some cases, e-books are more expensive than their printed equivalents.

When Amazon.com Inc. introduced its first Kindle e-reader back in November 2007, the $9.99 digital best seller was a key selling point. Today, the price of a Kindle has plummeted to under $100 — from $399 back then. But e-book prices for some popular titles have soared.

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Justice Department Confirms E-Book Probe

Thomas Catan — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:01:39 +0000

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed Wednesday that it is conducting an antitrust investigation into the pricing of electronic books, the latest antitrust watchdog to probe whether there was improper collusion by publishers and Apple Inc. to prevent discounting.

At a congressional hearing, Sharis Pozen, the Justice Department’s acting antitrust chief, said: “We are also investigating the electronic book industry, along with the European Commission and the states attorneys general.”

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Openmargin Hopes to Be More Than Social E-Reading (Video)

Drake Martinet — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:30:15 +0000

Back in college, there was this trick to buying used books for class: If you were smart, you’d flip through and look in the margins to see how good the notes were.

The idea was, why not get good help, even if it’s anonymous? (Even Harry Potter did it.)

Openmargin, a start-up based in the Netherlands, is employing the old used-textbook trick to bring a similar experience to just about any e-book around.

The company of three co-founders has built an iPad app, also called Openmargin, which allows users to create marginalia in their e-books, by indexing notes they take and comments they share to a highlighted area.

Anyone else using the Openmargin app to read the same e-book will see the highlights and be able to drill down into the comments.

“We started the company with the goal of helping users interact with people of similar interests,” co-founder Marc Köhlbrugge said. “And we chose the margins of a book as the place where people can connect.”

At scale, that could mean downloading an e-book, opening it inside the Openmargin app, and discovering all kinds of shared thoughts, debates and conversations that had been “hidden” in the e-book you’d had all along.

But scale is a long way off.

What Openmargin is reaching for is what social networking types call the “interest graph,” which is a buzzwordy way of saying stuff people like enough to talk about.”

Openmargin’s bet is that books are a natural fit for this emerging generation of topic-based, ad hoc social interactions, because books are full of ideas that can be discussed.

“I really don’t want to bring up the comparison to Color,” Köhlbrugge said, referencing the failed social image-sharing app, “but part of what they were trying to do was link people who don’t know each other around an experience. For us, that’s the book.”

But Openmargin, like many companies attempting to create in copyright-heavy industries, faces a hard reality — there are big rights-holders who want big profits, and it’s a long road to partnership.

Today, Openmargin is avoiding the issue by only offering its services around e-texts that don’t have any rights management restrictions — known as DRM-free. That means it will work for any texts in the public domain, and most books published under the various Creative Commons licenses.

That’s still a very small subset of books — especially on big e-book sites such as Amazon and Apple — which makes it a very large problem for Openmargin moving forward.

Köhlbrugge and crew are all based in Amsterdam, where the three-year road to start-up life has looked a little different than it might had they lived in Silicon Valley.

The company was initially funded not by angel investors, but by a national government grant for companies making innovations that were “culturally relevant,” Köhlbrugge said.

The company still hasn’t taken any private investment, but is now seeking another grant to make its first full-time engineering hires.

As it grows, Köhlbrugge’s hope is that Openmargin can avoid being “just another service that plugs into Facebook and shows you those friends.”

“The real hope is to show you not just opinions of people you know and agree with,” he said, “but to connect you with people who care about the same things, even if they don’t share your views.”

Here is a video interview I did with Openmargin’s co-founder, Marc Köhlbrugge:

[ See post to watch video ]

Amazon, Now a Book Lender

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Stu Woo — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:40:35 +0000

As the e-reader and tablet wars heat up, Amazon.com Inc. is launching a digital-book lending library that will be available only to owners of its Kindle and Kindle Fire devices who are also subscribers to its Amazon Prime program.

The program will be limited, at least at the beginning, in what is available to borrow. Amazon will initially offer slightly more than 5,000 titles in the library, including more than 100 current and former national bestsellers, such as Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” None of the six largest publishers in the U.S. is participating.

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Check Out What You Can Check Out at a Wisconsin Library: An Apple iPad

Ina Fried — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:00:09 +0000

While many libraries lend out electronic books for those who already have a tablet or e-reader, a Wisconsin library is cranking the digital lending up a notch.

The Eau Claire, Wis., library is lending out iPads. Some of the iPads are loaned for a week at a time, while others are offered for four hours at a time for use within the libary. Each tablet is loaded with 1,000 books and 10 audiobooks, as well as various apps and Web site links. In all, the library has 44 iPads to lend.

“The goal of the iPads program is to first introduce our customers to a new technology they haven’t used,” library director John Stoneberg told TV station WEAU. “Since we are the first public library, if not the first library in the United States to lend out iPads, it’s been a challenge but it’s been exciting.”

The library got a foundation grant to help pay for the tablets and said it chose the iPad from among the digital options because of its versatility.

“While there are many devices competing for the attention of the library customer, no single device can fulfill every need. The iPad was chosen for this project because of its place as a tablet computer marketplace leader and its flexibility in providing more access to library-related content than an e-reader-only device,” the library said in a document outlining the program.

Libraries have been going digital for some time, adding a variety of digital media to their physical and virtual shelves, as well as offering Internet access to patrons. On Wednesday, Amazon announced that its Kindle devices can now be used to read e-books checked out from libraries, joining similar programs available to Nook and Sony Reader owners.

Update: The folks at the Eau Claire Library, valuing preciseness, wanted us to know that they said they were one of the first, if not the first libraries to offer iPad checkouts. They said they have since heard from the Mentor Public Library in Ohio and Darien Library in Connecticut that both also offer iPad checkouts, though on a smaller scale.

[Due Date image (shown on iPad) courtesy Flickr user Doug Coldwell.

Apple, Starbucks Expanding iTunes Giveaways to Include Apps, Books and TV Shows

Ina Fried — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:46:58 +0000

For some time now, Starbucks customers have been able to download a free song in addition to buying their lattes, mochas and Frappa-whatevers.

Lately, though, the company’s “pick of the week” program has expanded. It started last month with giving away the paid iPhone app Shazam Encore, and this week’s freebie is an extended book sample from Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus.” The expansion could soon extend to TV shows as well, I’m told.

The Starbucks partnership is one of Apple’s oldest iTunes partnerships, and Starbucks has also been beefing up its digital offerings to take advantage of its in-store Wi-Fi.

E-Book Prices Prop Up Print Siblings

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:30:29 +0000

Even as readers grow more comfortable with digital books, some continue to question why so many of the most popular new e-books are priced so high. Michael Connelly’s recent legal thriller, “The Fifth Witness,” has more one-star reviews on Amazon than five-star reviews in part because some angry reviewers focused on the e-book’s $14.99 price.

As physical book sales fall, publishers’ fixed costs are becoming more cumbersome. One area major publishers can cushion the blow is by keeping e-book prices higher. “If e-book prices land at 99 cents in the future we’re not going to be in good shape,” said one New York publishing executive, who asked not to be identified.

Indeed, e-book prices on many new national best sellers are higher today than they were at the start of last year.

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Barnes & Noble Losses Continue but Nook Business Soars

Maxwell Murphy — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:35:00 +0000

Barnes & Noble Inc.’s fiscal first-quarter loss narrowed less than expected but the bookseller continued to post robust sales growth tied to its popular Nook electronic-book reader.

Shares soared more than 15 percent at one point Tuesday morning to $13.22 apiece as the company recorded the first quarter in two years with better year-to-year bottom-line results.

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Kno Taking Electronic Textbooks to Web, Facebook

Ina Fried — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:01:14 +0000

After shifting its focus to software, electronic textbook seller Kno now has set its sights on making college students’ homework a lot more social and interactive.

The company is this week announcing plans to allow those who buy textbooks from Kno to read them on Facebook and via the Web, in addition to its current iPad app. On the iPad front, the company is also adding features, taking the product beyond just an electronic version of a traditional textbook.

Among the new features: The ability to automatically turn any book diagram into a quiz by blocking out various elements; another creates a separate journal out of all the highlights and annotations one makes in a book. The company also hopes to add the ability to include audio recordings and handwritten notes.

“This fundamentally changes how a student interacts with a textbook,” said Ousama Haffar, Kno’s VP of marketing. Beyond just lightening students backpacks by digitizing books, Haffar noted that Kno’s software reshapes the way students take notes and, ultimately, how they learn.

Kno announced its iPad app in June, along with a catalog of tens of thousands of textbooks available for purchase.

Beyond the iPad, Kno is trying to make its books more accessible, adding both the Web-based reader and a Facebook app. These apps allow reading of books, but not the more advanced features like highlighting and annotations. That, Haffar says, is coming.

The company hasn’t disclosed download figures, but says that the numbers are in the tens of thousands, with a goal of reaching a million downloads by the end of this fall. Kno’s rivals include the publisher-based CourseSmart and San Francisco-based Inkling, which last week announced it had raised $17 million in Series B funding.

Kno originally fancied itself a hardware maker as well, but has since exited that business. These days it has about 50 employees — smaller than before — and is focused entirely on software.

Haffar said he is not worried about competing against large companies like Amazon, insisting the $9 billion textbook market has room for several players. Plus, he said, Kno is focused on doing one thing well.

“Our focus is singularly on building the best software for the education market,” he said. “We’re not selling diapers. We’re not selling electronics.”

Thanks, Netflix! You Too, Amazon! Why CBS Loves the Digital Rerun Business.

Peter Kafka — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:20:23 +0000

Another data point for the “digital can be a really good thing for big media” argument: CBS says one reason it just posted a very nice second quarter is because of a Netflix deal which brings it new money for old shows.

CBS, which saw revenues jump up 8 percent, said the increase was “driven by” a 21 percent increase in licensing and distributing dollars, “which benefited from a new licensing agreement for the digital streaming of select library titles.”

Translation: “That $200 million Netflix deal we announced back in February, which lets us resell stuff we’re no longer putting on the air, is kicking in and paying off.”

There is more good news for CBS coming down the pike, as the results don’t include a similar Amazon deal, and another Netflix deal (for international), both announced last month.

Again, this is the best-case digital scenario for Big Media titans like CBS: The one where technology doesn’t carve up their existing business, but gives them a chance to sell old stuff (in some cases, really old stuff, like the original “Star Trek”) “over and over again,” in the words of CEO Les Moonves during today’s earnings call.

Asked who else might be willing to pay up for his re-runs, Moonves got more effusive. “[Satellite TV operator] Dish just announced today that they’re going to spend a significant amount of money buying content and libraries,” he said, adding that “we hear about Apple wanting to buy content, and Google. Et cetera, et cetera. And Microsoft.”

A slightly less enthusiastic version of the same story comes from CBS’ book division at Simon & Schuster: Revenue dropped 3 percent, as a boom in digital sales couldn’t outweigh a drop in print revenue. But because digital sales are more profitable than print, earnings moved up 12 percent.

Barnes & Noble Focuses on E-Books

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:45:27 +0000

Meet Barnes & Noble Inc., software company.

As reading moves ever faster from hardcovers and paperbacks to electronic gadgets, the retailer is attempting to reinvent itself as a seller of book downloads, reading devices and apps.

The shift was never clearer than last January, when a small group of experienced book buyers at the company was called in and dismissed. Barnes & Noble’s buyers were once book-selling royalty, minititans whose taste played a pivotal role in deciding which books danced up the charts.

For the bookseller there was little choice. It needed to invest in the future.

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Google's eBooks Platform Gets Its First Dedicated E-Reader

John Paczkowski — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:55:59 +0000

The first dedicated Google eBooks e-reader is finally headed to market. On July 17, the $139.99 iriver Story HD will land on the shelves of Target stores nationwide, becoming the first e-reader to allow users to browse, buy and download Google eBooks directly over Wi-Fi.

Inkling Turns Your iPad Into a Textbook: The D9 Demo (Video)

Peter Kafka — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 17:46:32 +0000

Tablets and textbooks are a natural fit, which is why so many companies are scrambling to get into the market.

Inkling is well positioned in several ways: It has millions in funding from top-tier venture firms, as well as contracts with some of the biggest textbook publishers. The fact that CEO Matt MacInnis is a former Apple executive doesn’t hurt, either.

MacInnis showed off his e-books at the D9 conference this month. He only has a couple dozen titles right now, but promises there will be many more by the time schools start again in the fall.

[ See post to watch video ]

J.K. Rowling Conjures Up Potter E-Books

Paul Sonne — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:30:01 +0000

After years of refusing to release her boy-wizard books in electronic format, Harry Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling is finally taking the digital plunge, launching an online store that will sell Harry Potter e-books directly to consumers and a social-networking site designed to keep the Potter magic alive.

The free-to-access site, known as Pottermore, launches for the first million users on July 31 and opens to the general public—with the online e-book store—in October. Once the online store opens, the full Harry Potter series will be available as e-books in multiple languages, compatible with any electronic reading device.

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Barnes & Noble Loss Widens on Higher Expenses

Maxwell Murphy — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:25:06 +0000

Barnes & Noble Inc.’s fiscal fourth-quarter loss widened on higher expenses, though the bookseller posted higher revenue, thanks to surging online sales.

The nation’s largest book-store chain offered no guidance for the current fiscal year as its board of directors continues to evaluate a takeover offer made last month by billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media Holding Corp. Liberty’s closely watched offer values the chain at $17 a share, or about $1.02 billion, a valuation that some said is too low, given the possibilities for Barnes & Noble’s increasingly popular Nook e-book device in the rapidly growing e-reader market.

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The Nook Gets a Nudge From Consumer Reports

Peter Kafka — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 19:19:09 +0000

Barnes & Noble’s newest Nook has fewer features than its predecessor, as well as many other rivals. That’s great, says Consumer Reports, which has crowned the new $139 device its favorite e-book reader. It’s the first time the magazine has put an e-reader made by anyone other than Amazon at the top of its rankings.

Amazon to Publish New Line of Romances

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:00:32 +0000

Amazon.com Inc. is expanding its fast-growing publishing business with a new line of romance books, its latest quest for original content to distinguish its print and digital bookselling services.

The imprint, Montlake Romance, will publish digital, physical and audio books and launch with an original new work, Connie Brockway’s “The Other Guy’s Bride,” this fall.

In an interview, Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, said the online retailer will eventually publish books in other genres, including thrillers, mysteries and science fiction.

“Our customers are voracious readers of genre fiction, and romance is one of the biggest and fastest growing categories,” said Mr. Belle.

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E-Book Boom Boosts Simon & Schuster

Peter Kafka — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:21:17 +0000

All of those Amazon Kindle sales–and, presumably, sales of competitive e-book readers from Barnes & Noble and Apple–have made an impact at publisher Simon & Schuster. The CBS unit says Q1 digital sales doubled over the previous year, and now represent 18 percent of the company’s revenue. Overall sales were up only 2 percent, to $155 million, but the higher margin on those digital sales means profits “more than doubled” to $7 million.

Amazon's New Ad-Supported Kindle Will Start Shipping Tomorrow

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:31:43 +0000

Amazon said during its first-quarter conference call this afternoon that it will be shipping its new Kindle with Special Offers nearly a week early.

Originally, the new Kindle was supposed to be available on May 3, but Amazon’s SVP and CFO Tom Szkutak confirmed that it will start shipping tomorrow.

The device, called Kindle with Special Offers, comes at the lowest price yet at $114, which is $25 cheaper than the Wi-Fi-only version.

While the hardware on the new e-reader is identical, it’s cheaper because it is being subsidized by advertising. Initially, sponsors include General Motors, Proctor & Gamble and Visa.

“The team did a nice job of moving the dates up,” he said.

The e-reader will be available from Amazon, Target and Best Buy.

While the new price only represents a drop of $25 (and Amazon promises the device will never be free), it will likely drive additional sales of the already popular e-reader. Sticking with tradition, Amazon did not disclose how many had been sold to date. “We are incredibly excited with Kindle because we see that customers are buying a lot more books….We continue to invest in that business,” Szkutak said.

Also during the call, Amazon hinted at how fast its physical retail sales are growing. Szkutak said it may build more than the nine distribution centers it had been planning on building this year. Already, one has opened, and about five are expected to be based in North America with the remainder opening up internationally.

Analysts watch Amazon’s investments carefully because it affects the company’s profitability. Right now, it is investing heavily, leading first quarter profits to fall despite a 38 percent surge in revenues year over year.

Separately, the company said revenues were hurt internationally by the earthquake in Japan. Had it not been for the natural disaster, it said international revenues would have grown by 32 percent instead of 27 percent.

Cheapest E-Books Upend the Charts

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:00:38 +0000

The nation’s largest book publishers are facing increasing pricing pressure on the digital front as the number of cheap, self-published digital titles gain popularity with readers seeking budget-minded entertainment.

Amazon.com Inc.’s top 50 digital best-seller list featured 15 books priced at $5 or less on Wednesday afternoon. Louisville businessman John Locke, for example, a part-time thriller writer whose signature series features a former CIA assassin, claimed seven of those titles, all priced at 99 cents.

“They’re training their customers away from brand name authors and are instead creating visibility for self-published titles,” one senior publishing executive who asked not to be identified, says of Amazon.

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Check it Out: Amazon Will Add 11,000 U.S. Libraries to the Kindle

Tricia Duryee — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:01:49 +0000

Amazon just eliminated one of the biggest differences between the Kindle and competing e-readers. It said today it will be rolling out the Kindle Library Lending feature later this year, allowing customers to borrow books for free from more than 11,000 libraries in the U.S. Other e-readers and e-book services have allowed books to be checked out from the library for some time. Amazon said library books will be available both on Kindle devices and through the Kindle’s mobile apps.

Kobo Closes Book on $50 Million Round to Fuel International Growth

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:56:33 +0000

Kobo has raised $50 million in capital to go head to head against Amazon, Apple, Google and others.

The e-book company will need all the cash it can get.

All three of its major competitors have deep pockets and all the motivation in the world to become the dominant players in e-books as a starting beachhead before branching into other digital content.

The Toronto-based company, which celebrated its one-year anniversary in December, said the round was led by an undisclosed leading institutional investor.

Existing investors, including Indigo Books & Music and Cheung Kong Holdings, also participated in the round by contributing $13 million.

In a release, Kobo’s CFO Greg Twinney said: “Kobo will use the new funding to continue its explosive growth internationally. As the eReading space continues to heat up, Kobo is committed to providing an innovative experience that lets consumers read anytime, anyplace and share their love of reading with friends.”

Kobo kicked off its European expansion last week, with the announcement of its plans to launch local content stores in Germany. Local additions are also coming for Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Kobo’s competition is extremely stiff.

Amazon has dominated the space, announcing that it now sells more e-books than it does paperbacks and hardcovers. Last week, it announced the $114 Kindle that’s subsidized by ads, which will likely fuel adoption of its e-reader and its proprietary e-books.

Some of Kobo’s recent achievements include:

An e-book store that has more than 2.3 million e-books, newspapers and magazines.

More than 3.2 million users, more than 1 million new users in the past 90 days.