“The market has been growing faster than anyone anticipated. When you look specifically at the consumer part of the market, separate from academic, it could hit 50 percent by 2014.”
Here’s his short list of growth figures to support the page-turner up of a story:
– Since Kobo launched on Dec. 15, 2009, it has sold millions of e-books to customers in more than 100 countries.
– Millions of free e-books have been downloaded by more than 1.3 million registered users and millions of free users.
– Devices sold remains undisclosed, however, Serbinis adds this: “We assume it took Amazon two years to hit 1 million. We have been selling [an e-reader] since May, and we’ll hit it a lot faster.”
– A catalog of 2.2 million eBooks, popular newspapers and magazines, from thousands of leading publishers.
– Kobo has grown from 10 employees to 170.
– Revenues are also undisclosed, however, Serbinis says in the past year, the e-book market has hit $1 billion in sales. “If you are a player, you are in the hundreds of millions. Otherwise the space has gotten away from you.” [On Monday, Amazon disclosed that it was selling millions of Kindles this holiday season.]
Serbinis said Kobo’s growth will continue in the new year as it expands internationally, and adds new features that connect the reading experience to social networks, or keeps track of reading stats, such as hours read and pages turned. In January, it will be moving into a new space that could support two to three times as many employees in 2011.
Overall, Kobo’s goal is to allow its users to read its books on any device, PC, etc., by using open standards. That sets itself apart from Amazon, which encodes the books with their own proprietary standards. Still, both companies are taking the approach of making apps for all the multitude of smartphone platforms, tablets, etc. In the strictest sense, Google is a more comparable because it is also using open standards.
Kobo’s focus is not on the hardware, although it found it necessary early on to launch an e-reader in order to promote the space, much like razors being necessary to sell razorblades. The device is sold at Walmart and seven book chains around the world. A tethered version is as cheap as $99, and a Wi-Fi version costs around $129.
The company is backed by Indigo Books & Music, a Canadian book seller, Borders Group, REDgroup Retail and Cheung Kong Holdings. So far, it’s disclosed that it has raised $16 million in venture capital, but has since raised an undisclosed round from existing investors. It has hired Morgan Stanley as an advisor to raise “a lot more than that” in the new year, Serbinis said.
Tagged: EMoney, Tricia Duryee, Amazon, anniversary, Apple, bookstore, commerce, e-books, e-commerce, e-Reader, Google, iPad, Kindle, Kobo, Michael Serbinis, mobile, tablets, venture capital | permalink
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