The Kindle Store Launches in Brazil, Just as the Google Play Store Adds Movies and Books

Brazilians are getting a lot of love this holiday season from digital store companies, it seems. Both Amazon and Google are opening up shop there, making a lot of tablet users happy. Google is expanding its Play Store to cover movies and books for the first time in Brazil.

Meanwhile, Amazon, which has finally gotten a hold of Amazon.com.br, is opening up its Kindle Store there.

Amazon boasts that the store has some 1.4 million books priced in Brazilian Reals. Most of those are in English though, the same books it sells everywhere.

There are some 13,000 books in Portuguese to choose from, the most in any digital book store Amazon claims.

The Kindle is also selling for R$299, or some $143, €110. That's the updated fourth generation Kindle without touch input, so it's twice as expensive as in the US, no big surprise.

"We are excited to launch this new Kindle Store for Brazilian customers, offering the most popular best-selling books from many great Brazilian authors, all priced in Reais," Alexandre Szapiro, VP of Kindle, Amazon.com.br, wrote.

"We’re also bringing our latest generation Kindle - the best-selling e-reader in the world - to Brazilian customers," he added.

Meanwhile, Google is quietly expanding the Play Store in the country and it's no coincidence that it's at the same time as Amazon. Both companies are positioning themselves to make the most out of the holiday shopping season.

The Play Store now offers movie rentals alongside with books. The selection isn't that great, apparently, but it's a start. It shows that the Brazilian market is becoming increasingly interesting.

With 190 million people, more and more of them going online all the time, Brazil is one of the big developing internet markets and all the big web companies are keeping an eye on developments.