Kobo touts millions of e-reader sales in 2012, despite lack of exposure

By Joshua Sherman January 17, 2013

Image used with permission by copyright holder

While the e-reader market in the United States is dominated by Amazon’s Kindle, and followed weakly behind by the Apple iPad and Barnes & Noble Nook, Canada-based e-reader company Kobo is proving to us today this may very well change in the coming months. The company, owned by Japanese retailer Rakuten, has sold millions of its e-reader devices in 2012, most of which in the last six months alone.

Kobo has a lot to brag about. While forecasters everywhere spelt doom for the e-reader concept in favor of tablets, Kobo sold more than 4 million e-readers in the last six months, bringing its entire userbase up an impressive 50 percent to 12 million total users.

CEO of Kobo, Michael Serbinis: “In December we celebrated Kobo’s third anniversary as well as the biggest month for the company yet,” as well as proudly reported a 20 percent global market share. This news is impressive, especially how little Kobo has made attempts to penetrate the U.S. so far.

The company, based out of Toronto, is owned by the massive Japanese retailer Rakuten, and has an impressive market share in regions such as Canada where it’s based. It even reportedly outperforms Amazon’s Kindle in Canada, and it wont be long until we see this fast-growing e-reader company enter and perform in even more markets. While Kobo has seen stiff competition already in its most competitive markets from Amazon and Apple, we’re not sure how the e-reader company will fare as it continues its massive expansion into 2013, and how it will fare in the already crowded e-book market in the U.S.

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Joshua Sherman is a contributor for Digital Trends who writes about all things mobile from Apple to Zynga. Josh pulls his…

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