Kobo News

Sony announced that it is closing its Reader store in the US and Canada towards the end of March, and all Reader accounts (including their library content) will be moved to Kobo's platform. Sony says the migration process will be painless, and hopefully it will be so.

Sony PRS-T3

Sony will also install Kobo's application on select Xperia devices. This sounds like a good deal for Kobo. It's a shame to see Sony taking this step - they were once the leaders in e-readers (back before Amazon launched their Kindle).

There are reports that Kobo is set to release a new e-reader soon. According to leaked photos and FCC filings, this will be a 6" e-reader with a 1,500mAh battery. The e-reader sports a microSD slot and a micro-USB port, and currently that's all we know.

Kobo is now offering the Kobo Mini e-reader for $39.99 (plus $8 in shipping) for a limited time, down from the normal $79.99. The Kobo Mini is a small e-reader with a 5" E Ink touch display, Wi-Fi and 2Gb of internal memory. The display is an E Ink Vizplex, the older generation technology.

Engadget posted a review of the new limited-edition premium e-reader, the Kobo Aura HD. While the large high-def display (6.8", 1440x1080) is great, and the specs are very good (CPU, storage, etc.) - it's still larger and heavier than Kindle or Nook, and more expensive too. As such it will only be compelling for new users which are very heavy readers.

As I see it, most heavy readers already have an e-reader, so it'll be difficult to make them switch to the new Kobo platform. That's a shame because the idea of a premium e-reader is great. I love my Kindle and I think I'd be willing to pay more for a better device (although I like the fact that it is small and light).

Kobo says they have added 4 million users in the last 6 months, bringing it to a total 12 million registered users. They have sold "millions" of readers in 2012 (including the Kobo Glo, Kobo Mini and also Kobo tablets) - and December was great with sales of E Ink e-readers growing almost 150%.

Kobo says that their market share is around 20% of the global e-reader market. IDC says that the total e-reader market in 2012 was 20 million units, which means that Kobo sold around 4 million e-readers in 2012.

Kobo announced two new E Ink e-readers today. The first is the Glo, Kobo's first backlit e-reader that features a 6" XGA (1024x768) touch E Ink Pearl display (seems to be the same display used by Amazon in their Kindle Paperwhite), Wi-Fi, 2Gb of internal memory and a microSD slot. The Kobo Glo will launch soon for $129.99, you can already pre-order it.

The second e-reader is the small Kobo Mini that sports a 5" E Ink touch display, Wi-Fi and 2Gb of internal memory. The display is an E Ink Vizplex, the older generation technology. The Mini costs $79.99.

Kobo says that it had very good holiday sales. In fact the Kobo user base nearly doubled in the last 6 weeks, with "hundreds of thousands of activations" occurred every day from Christmas to the new year. Kobo is offering both an e-reader and a tablet, but they wouldn't say how many sales they got for each.

E-book gifting also increased - 200% from last year. The most popular ebooks gifted during the holidays were Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and The Song of Ice and Fire (four-book bundle) by George R. R. Martin.