Sony plans to exit the Japanese market for the delivery of ebooks to PCs and its dedicated ebook reader. Instead, the company will focus only on delivering content to mobile phones, the
Nikkei Business Daily reported this week.
Sony’s wholly owned subsidiary
Timebook Town provides ebooks, ecomics and other content for use on PCs and the
Librie ebook reader. However, since halting production of the Librie last year, Sony has decided to stop the Timebook service per February 2009 and liquidate the subsidiary.
From then on, Sony will only focus on delivering content to mobile phones. Sony’s Publishing Link, which launched services in December 2007 offering ebooks, ecomics and other mobile content, will be expanded. Sony said that demand for ebook readers remains strong in the US and other overseas markets so it will continue ebook sales for devices and PCs in those markets.