New store has 850,000 titles in multiple languages, and counting

Oct 7, 2011 12:40 GMT  ·  By

Amazon was already a global presence, but it took things one step further with the launch of a new product and book store in France, though shipments won't start for a while yet.

Amazon just let everyone know that its French customers have every reason to feel more closely looked after than ever.

More specifically, the online retailer created a completely new e-book store for its French customers, though this is just half of its latest press release.

What Amazon also did, and this may qualify as something at least as relevant overall, was to release yet another e-book reader.

Basically, there is now a French-language Kindle for sale, though shipments won't start until October 14, 2011.

“French customers are passionate about books and reading, and just as we’ve seen in the US, UK and Germany, we believe they will love reading on Kindle. We are excited to bring our first French-language Kindle and our new Kindle store to millions of Amazon.fr customers,” said Greg Greeley, vice president, Amazon European Retail.

“Kindle is already the best-selling e-reader in the world. We kept everything readers love about Kindle - the electronic ink display that reads like real paper, with no glare, even in bright daylight, the convenience of downloading books in less than 60 seconds and Kindle’s ability to disappear in your hands so you can get lost in the author’s words—and made it lighter, smaller, faster, and more affordable than ever.”

The store contains hundreds of graphics novels, over 4,000 free classics in French and all 28 L'Express best sellers.

All in all, there should be over 825,000 titles, in English and other languages, thousands of which are global bestsellers.

The French-language Kindle is priced at 99 Euro, or $132.95 (based on exchange rates). Orders can be placed here (Amazon's official web page).