From Publishing Perspectives:
After several months of beta testing, Abril, one of the largest media groups in the Brazil, has officially launched Iba, a new digital retailing platform with 25 magazine titles, 19 newspapers and 6,000 e-books from 170 publishers – making it one of the largest e-book retailers in Brazil, following Gato Sabido, which has 7,300 ebooks, and Saraiva, which has around 6,000.
The launch comes just as competition is expected to heat up, with Amazon and Google expected to launch later this year, and several other domestic platforms – Mundo Positivo, Buqui and Travessa — having started selling e-books in the past few months.
“We want to be one of the big ones in the e-book market,” says Ricardo Garrido, operations director at Iba. The company has invested R$10 million in the venture so far and a total of R$60 million is expected to be invested over the next five years.
Garrido says he expects a steep rise in the number of e-books available in Brazil in the next months. “Publishers are speeding up their production and we believe there is going to be a huge rise in the nubmer of e-books on offer, he says. Iba is also looking to close deals with international aggregators.
(Via Publishing Perspectives.)
