Kindle Unlimited, Amazon’s “all-you-can-read” subscription service, is now available in India. Pricing currently starts at 99 rupees (about $1.50) for a one-month plan, though that will increase to 199 rupees at the end of this month.
Amazon was one of the first companies to launch an e-reader in India when it made the Kindle available there in 2012, but the devices now compete with Kobo and a host of smartphones and tablets. In terms of content, the Kindle Unlimited plan is up against Flipkart, which operates India’s largest e-book platform (according to a report by BMS Index, Flipkart’s e-book market is also the second largest in the world behind Kindle, ranking ahead of Barnes & Noble, FNAC, Waterstones, and The Book depository).
The launch of Kindle Unlimited in India helps Amazon ramp up its competition with Flipkart. Though Flipkart’s share of the Indian e-commerce market is still ahead of Snapdeal and Amazon, monthly unique visitors growth to Amazon’s India site is growing the quickest out of the three, according to comScore, and the Kindle Unlimited catalog may help it pull in even more shoppers.
Making Kindle Unlimited available in India also taps into a market with a lot of growth potential. According to Digital Book World, e-books currently account for just two percent of the country’s $2 billion market, but that amount is expected to grow as more people get their hands on inexpensive smartphones and tablets.
This is the first Asia launch for Kindle Unlimited, which is currently also available in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada.