By Herman Lai, posted Dec 17, 2012 at 7:44 AM, 558 views,

Amazon’s Kindle Store Faces Regulatory Hurdle in China After Its Official Launch

Last week, Amazon launched its ebook store in China and began to sell Chinese electronic books via its mobile Kindle application on iOS and Android devices. However, there were reports emerged saying local authorities have started investigating the company’s right to sell e-books in the country, since Amazon does not have a license from publishing authorities for e-book operations.

According to the regulation of GAPP, any enterprises that seek to operate in the digital publishing field of China must obtain at least one of the four licenses for publishing, copying, distributing or importing e-books in order to legally operate the business, but Amazon allegedly did not acquired any of them. Amazon launched its ebook platform on December 13 only by using its partner’s license, where local authorities said borrowing a license was against the law. In fact, Amazon had applied for a business license for its Kindle Store in China, but it is yet to be approved and it probably would take a long time for the Chinese official to approve it since China has strict policy on foreign business to operate in China.

The Chinese-version Kindle store has nothing new, it still works in the exact same way as the typical Kindle store, but it offers 25,000 e-books for Kindle software on Apple and Android systems, including 2,800 that can be freely downloaded. Although there were some reports saying many Chinese people are buying Kndles from oversea, it’s still not easy for Amazon to compete in the intense Chinese e-book market. Many local ebook vendors such as Dangdang, 360buy, Hanwang and Shanda have massive and ebooks library, where Dangdang has around 100,000 e-books in its library. Also, some Chinese users complained many errors and mistakes were found in the ebooks that offered by Amazon China.

When Will Amazon’s Kindle Device Land in China?

With the launch of Kindle store in China, it sparked many speculations that Amazon is close to release the long-awaited Kindle devices in China soon. Back in June, the State Radio Regulation of China approved Kindle Touch, Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle keyboard. However, Amazon’s Kindle device has not yet reached the Chinese market, as the launch was rumored to be held up because Amazon was having difficulty to set up a Cloud Drive service in China and the U.S. company was reportedly looking to rent capacities from local service provider. As a result, we can safely assume Amazon’s Cloud Drive Service and Kindle Store are the two major hurdles that currently hold up the launch of Kindle devices in China.

Source: QQ Tech (Chinese Translated)