Amazon Opens UK Kindle Store

Kindle’s future, as a device, is anyone’s guess, but the Kindle Store’s success is undeniable. Amazon is selling more e-books than hardcovers at this point the sales are booming. The company has now opened up a Kindle Store in the UK offering a number of e-books comparable to that in the US version of the store.

“The Kindle Store offers the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read at low prices,” Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content at Amazon, said. “The all-new Kindle will begin shipping at the end of the month, but customers can start reading books from the massive UK Kindle Store today by downloading any of our free Kindle apps for the most popular devices.”

The UK store will offer 400,000 titles at launch, compared to the 650,000 offered in the US version, including, Amazon says, 80 of the top 100 books on Nielsen UK’s bestseller list. The devices will be slightly more expensive than in the US, that’s always the case with most gadgets in the UK and in Europe in general.

UK customers will pay £109 for the Wi-Fi-only model and £149 for the 3G model of the latest Kindle 3. That’s about £25 more than the US price, $138 for the Wi-Fi version and $189 for the one with 3G connectivity. The interesting part though is the price of the books themselves, which differs slightly from the US. Kindle books will retail for £3 to £11 in the UK.

The Kindle Store and device were already available in the UK, as they are in much of the world. However, devices were shipped from the US and prices were in dollars. With the dedicated UK store, prices are in pounds and users can access UK reviews, bestseller lists, the entire experience is localized.