Flipkart e-books available on more devices

Leading e-commerce player Flipkart Monday unveiled three more applications (apps) for tech-savvy users to read e-books on mobile devices.

"Our e-books, which were available through an Android application till date, can be bought and read by downloading Apple's mobile operating system (iOS), Windows Phone and Web Reader browser," Flipkart vice-president Ravi Vora said in a statement here.

With about 40 percent share in the organised books market, the six-year-old company is extending its domain expertise in the digital format to provide seamless content on multiple platforms and strengthen its position in the segment.

"We are also partnering with Nokia to pre-install the app on its upcoming Lumina devices for extending the experience of reading e-books to a larger number of customers," Vora said.

The company plans to upload one million e-book titles on its website (Flipkart.com) by this year-end from 250,000 currently.

"As restricting the e-book experience to a single device does not make business sense, the three new apps will make readers access on any smartphone, table or PC," Payments and Digital Media head Mekin Maheswari noted.

In addition to an extensive selection of Hindi e-books, Flipkart is building a robust collection of regional titles in Marathi and Bengali to be made available from next quarter.

"We believe such initiatives will help seed the habit of reading on digital platforms amongst a larger base of consumers," Vora added.

With smart-phones emerging as a constant companion of digital consumers, e-book reading is set to become a habit of the younger generation.