Sony abandons E-book reader business no longer develops new products

Sony has decided to give up selling E-book reader reader because the product sales cannot satisfy the company. Sony told the BBC in Tuesday that the company has no plans to develop next-generation reader products. Prs-t3 the last version of the E-book reader developed for Sony. Sony will still sell the product in the European market as long as it is in stock. Sony was once the leading E-reader maker and e-book retailer in North America. and launched the first E-reader in 2006, much earlier than the now-hot Amazon Kindle. Since then, Sony has launched a PRS-T1 E-book reader in the US region in 2012. PRS-T3 was also launched in 2013, but the product was listed only in Europe and did not land in the North American market. But Prs-t3 's high price is less competitive than its rival Amazon's Kindle. Earlier this year, Sony announced it would close its digital bookstores in North America, including the US and Canada, and hand over the E-book business in North America to Kobo agents. This May, Sony's E-book business in Europe and Australia was also handed over to Kobo. But in Japan, Sony E-book reader users can still access the Sony E-book store reader store. Kobo has previously been purchased by Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company. As Amazon's Kindle products dominate the E-book reader market, and the rise of smartphones and tablets makes it difficult for E-book readers such as Sony's reader to survive in the marketplace. According to statistics from the bookseller, Amazon accounts for about 90% of the UK E-book reader market. The E-book Reader market peaked in 2011 when it sold 23 million units worldwide. But Gartner, a market-research firm, predicts that the size of the E-book reader market will shrink to 10 million by 2017, as smartphones and tablets continue to rise. Even so, PwC predicts that by 2018 the E-book market will be larger than traditional printed books.