Bubble face cover is going to quit the "group chat"?
On January 4, "Kindle or withdraw from the Chinese market" topped the Weibo hot search list. At present, the Kindle Jingdong self-operated store is almost in a state of shortage, leaving only an 8G youth version of the 600+ low-end products, while the Amazon Kindle Tmall official flagship store has closed at the end of October 2021 and has not yet recovered. In this regard, some netizens speculated that this is a signal that Amazon's e-book business is going to withdraw from the country.
Kindle Jingdong self-operated store some out-of-stock products screenshots
As of press time, the topic of "Kindle or exit from the Chinese market" has been read by 290 million people on Weibo and discussed 16,000 times. Some netizens said, "It should be the lack of electronic components caused by the instability of the output situation, some models are out of stock", and some netizens said, "Although a little lost, but quit it, after all, it is not just needed, and there are too many competitors." In a Weibo poll about the Kindle, 40% of users believed that its advantages were easy to carry, and another 4 adults believed that the Kindle had no advantages.
On the afternoon of the same day, Amazon responded: "We are committed to serving Chinese consumers. Consumers can purchase Kindle devices through third-party online and offline retailers. The high-quality customer service and warranty services provided by Amazon will not change. The Kindle e-book reader is popular with consumers, and some models are currently sold out in the Chinese market. ”
For this response, some netizens also asked - is this equivalent to admitting to withdrawing from the Chinese market?
According to the Beijing News, a number of independent sources within Amazon China revealed to the previous that the company's Kindle hardware team was laid off in November last year. Technology media ZEALER earlier reported that the Kindle China business group has been all dismissed by Amazon, and the e-book store will be closed at the same time in the future, suggesting that users should back up their relevant data.
For the "exit" storm of hot search on the top of this round, an Amazon China Kindle customer service said that at present, the official sales channel of Kindle is only Jingdong's self-operated store, and in terms of sales, it has not yet received a notice. A customer service staff of a Kindle Jingdong self-operated store said, "At present, I have not received any news about this aspect, and I will replenish it in the future." ”
Publicly available sources show that the Kindle is an e-reader designed and sold by Amazon. On November 19, 2007, the first-generation Kindle was released, which was only available in the United States and the United States at that time, and sold out within 6 hours of listing. On June 7, 2013, Kindle entered China, setting off an e-book reading trend that allowed users to use Amazon Kindle over a wireless network to buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other electronic media. In just 5 years, the Kindle has sold millions of units in the Chinese market.
The success of Kindle in the Chinese market has attracted many followers to enter the game, Founder, Shanda Literature, Patriot, etc. have launched related products, while the market player camp is still expanding, and brands such as iFLYTEK and Palm Reading have also launched e-readers. Compared with the Kindle, the price of local e-readers is lower, the software and hardware functions are more perfect, and they are more suitable for the reading habits of Chinese consumers.
Kindle competitors come from all over the world, and it's not just the above companies that have targeted the reading market, and e-readers are not the only form. In recent years, WeChat, Douban, NetEase, ByteDance and other Internet manufacturers have successively launched reading apps, a mobile phone can meet the reading needs of users, and the listening app has also caught up, further dividing the reading market share.
Compared with the rapid iteration, innovation and continuous upgrading of local products, the "evolution" of the Kindle is stagnant. Zhihu netizens "left ear listening to the wind" pointed out that in terms of hardware, Kindle endurance is general, product model, screen size is less selective, software, Kindle system is closed, the way of transmitting books is fixed two or three, pdf typography optimization is not good, do not consider the reading function.
Although it has a huge Amazon marketplace e-book resource resource, it is difficult for Kindle to have the upper hand in the domestic competition.
It is worth noting that on April 17, 2019, Amazon announced that its main e-commerce business launched the Chinese market, retaining only the two business sectors of Kindle e-books and cross-border trade in China, and all other businesses were withdrawn.
(Titanium Media App Editor Yang Yaru Synthesis)