Amazon has announced to shut down its Kindle bookstore in China, marking another retreat by a Western tech company in the world’s second largest economy.
In the announcement, the Seattle-based firm stated that “We have established an extensive business foundation in China and will continue to innovate and invest.” Also, “Amazon China’s long-term commitment to customers will not change.”
Existing customers will be able to download previously purchased titles till July 2024. Amazon also announced that they stop supplying Amazon’s Kindle devices to stores from upcoming Thursday.
The company announced on Thursday that from July 2023 onwards, Kindle users would not be able to buy online in China.
In October of last year, LinkedIn announced that it was going to close the version of its platform that is local in China as a “significantly more challenging operating environment” and compliance issues.
This move has taken corporate withdrawals from China in the last few months. This week Airbnb has also announced that it would remove all its listings in China and focus its efforts on travel to destinations outside of China, noting it had incurred a hefty amount of expenses, which were further exacerbated by the Covid-19.
From this summer, travelers will not be capable of booking reservations in China.
In 2004, Amazon first entered mainland China by acquiring Joyo.com, a major online seller of books, music, and videos in China.
Since then, it has had only a small amount of success in the huge market. In 2019, the company ended its local online marketplace in China, which meant that its customers would no longer be able to buy products from Chinese sellers.
So, the company didn’t publicly explain why analysts suggested it was consenting to local competitors, led by some companies such as Alibaba and JD.com.
So, Amazon will close its Kindle store in China.
The company also stated, “Amazon continues to run an online store in China allowing overseas purchases, in addition to cloud services, logistics, and advertising businesses.”
