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Old 11-08-2011, 05:35 PM   #1
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Kobo Sold to Japanese Company

Kobo sold to Japan’s Rakuten

Kobo Inc., the Canadian manufacturer of e-readers and a newly released tablet device, has been sold to Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten Inc. in a $315-million (U.S.) deal.

Tokyo-based Rakuten will acquire 100 per cent of Kobo’s total issued and outstanding shares, the company announced on Tuesday. The sale is also a windfall for Indigo Books & Music Inc. (IDG-T6.730.304.67%), which created Kobo and then sold it off.

“Rakuten is already one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms, while Kobo is the most social eBook service on the market and one of the world's largest eBook stores with over 2.5 million titles,” Kobo chief executive officer Michael Serbinis said in a statement on Tuesday. “This transaction will greatly strengthen our position in our current markets and allow us to diversify quickly into other countries and e-commerce categories.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...rticle2229733/

So ... anyone heard of Rakuten before today? There's a website here: http://global.rakuten.com/corp/

Press release here: http://global.rakuten.com/newsrelease/2011/1109.html
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Old 11-08-2011, 05:52 PM   #2
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Rakuten owns Buy.com in the US.
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Old 11-08-2011, 05:53 PM   #3
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Mmmmm...

There is a book (fiction), whose name escapes me for the moment -"Rose " I think is in it somewhere - which tells, basically, how Japan buys/takes control of Ireland.




Are we approaching the days of the mighty (well,a bit better than the £/$/zloty/rouble) once more I wonder.........
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Old 11-08-2011, 05:56 PM   #4
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Rakuten is a huge internet presence, but isn't part of the publishing industry there-curious what their approach is going to be. Sony just re-entered Japan's eBook market last year, and Amazon is rumored to release the Kindle there next year.


Interesting article about the state of eBooks in Japan here.

Quote:
Japan’s book distribution system is unique, and perhaps the most influential factor in publishers’ reluctance to embrace e-books. In 1953, the Japanese publishing industry established fixed pricing for books and magazines. Under the current system, the major and established publishers enjoy higher status than foreign publishers. Fixed pricing for print media is tolerated despite the country’s anti-trust policies, but not when it comes to digital content. Overall, physical book distribution in Japan is suffering from a number of factors, including a 40% return rate, 28% decline in small bookstores, and an overall market decline of 17% since 1996.
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:00 PM   #5
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My sense has always been that Kobo was building for takeover. The international and social focus of the company were amazing ideas--that needed a whole lot more money behind them to succeed.
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:05 PM   #6
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Kobo is all about books, book consumption and social reading experience. It's not really about the hardware as it aims to be open platform (heavily embracing Apple ecosystem solely through apps, driving Android use through Samsung and other vendors) ... its about bringing a new reading experience to the table.

Rakuten, as noted, doesn't have historic "book vision" but seems very focussed on e-vending. It's an interesting match-up and certainly can't harm Kobo's international ambitions. And, from the sounds of it, it has deeper pockets than the Indigo group does which is critical at this stage of Kobo's development.
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:10 PM   #7
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Perhaps they will combine fine dining with great literature and open some Kobo steak houses

/ducks
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:17 PM   #8
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Digging further in Rakuten. They own e-commerce sites all over the world. Also, banks, credit cards, investments, baseball team, travel agencies. They do own an online bookstore but I can't tell if there are ebooks available. The site is in Japanese.

However they did lose 41 billion yen the first 6 months of 2011. Mostly from their credit card business reorganization.
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:21 PM   #9
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Actually, this makes perfect sense:

1- Rakuten is a back-end ebook player just like Kobo: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/13/s...-book-service/

2- The japanese ebook market is stalled: http://publishingperspectives.com/20...ook-isolation/

Kobo had a global vision without global pockets, Rakuten has the money but not the reach.
And Indigo is betting on retail.
Cha-ching!
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Old 11-08-2011, 06:53 PM   #10
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I don't think it's quite that simple.

Kobo's vision is about monetizing ereading -- in a mix of ecommerce, hardware, book sales, piggy backing on existing social media, etc. It's all well and good to have an ecommerce platform for Thailand; what does Kobo gain from that? It's got a long way to go to flesh out its English publisher line-up and European push; I am guessing it is a whole different world pursuing ebooks in Asian and other languages.

Kobo wants to be the glue between publishers/authors and readers/social media active readers. It will certainly require a whole new set of product managers to develop for these new (to Kobo) markets.
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Old 11-08-2011, 07:13 PM   #11
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This isn't about Kobo using Rakuten, this is about Rakuten buying a tool to get into ebooks outside japan. They already tried with the Sony-Panasonic alliance but clearly didn't see it helping them outside Japan (assuming it is working even there). Kobo didn't decide; Rakuten did.

The Indigo folks would know why they made the move but I'm thinking they realized Kobo is a long-term, deep-pockets bet. And not a sure thing.
A bird in the hand and all that.

Kobo is just a tool that got a new owner but likely keeps its mission.
Could've been worse.

Last edited by fjtorres; 11-08-2011 at 07:17 PM.
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Old 11-09-2011, 12:01 AM   #12
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I can see the benefits of getting another company involved, but I have to say that I am shocked that Indigo gave up their stake completely, especially since they keep losing their book sales to e-books and focusing more and more on non-book products.
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Old 11-09-2011, 12:38 AM   #13
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Ah but see the money in ereaders is not in the readers themselves (in fact the margins are tiny on those). The money is in selling all the secondary stuff like covers, chargers, lights, etc. So what Indigo handily did is get rid of the part that makes very little money (the ereaders and ebook sales) and keep the part that is going to drive in store revenues. It's actually a really smart business move now they can sell Kobo without dealing with any of the infrastructure and provided their in store folk with an out for defective/buggy units in that they only sell Kobo they don't manufacture it.
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Old 11-09-2011, 12:50 AM   #14
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I'm sure Indigo will receive a commission for every kobobook sold. Usually it's 50-50 so they will still earn revenue from ebook sales.
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Old 11-09-2011, 03:20 AM   #15
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In the simplest terms, Rakuten is the Japanese version of Amazon, everything to everybody. They make a lot of their money simply on their brand name, it costs quite a lot to open an e-store under Rakuten's umbrella. As pointed out they also own a baseball team (part of their marketing strategy). Rakuten means "Easy Heaven" meaning it should be easy and heavenlike to shop on their site. However, anyone who has ever been to Japanese sites knows that their design is simply awful, cluttered, full of small icons, no color schemes etc.
Don't know if it holds up anymore, but for a long time they ware constantly in the top on Nikkei's list of growth stocks.
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