Google Play Books Launches In Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, And the Ukraine
Google might not be expanding their ebookstore at quite the same pace as last year but they haven't stopped. Following the June expansion into Luxembourg, Norway, and 11 Latin American countries, Google Play Books quietly launched in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Ukraine today.
The expansion hasn't been announced and in fact it technically has not happened yet, but Android Police noticed that the list of supported countries had been expanded by 4 names.
As you can see in the screenshot below (for the Ukraine), the interface has yet to be translated into the local language.
Google Play Books will soon be available in 61 countries around the globe. This is a larger potential customer base than the Nook Store, but still smaller than Kobo, Kindle, or iBooks.
On what basis does Apple have bigger reach than Google Play? Apple fields only 51 ebook stores. The other Apple sites do not carry iBooks.
No question Kobo has the biggest overall reach with its international store and various partners.
Amazon, not so much. A dozen actual Kindle stores, while blocking most of the rest of the world from downloading ebooks and processing payments, and imposing punitive surcharges even for free ebook downloads among the countries it does allow to buy.
Txtr still seems unclear about its Latin American expansion. The Venezuela site has gone from the list, and Mexico, Chile, Colombia , Peru and Argentina all lead back to the home site in Germany right now. But at least they are trying.
I confused total stores with actual retail. Thanks for catching that.