"The Tolino is a business subsidy" - manager-magazin.de

By Mirjam Hecking

the world

The hope of the German Book Trade: The eBook Reader Tolino

It was a coup: Thalia, worldview, Bertelsmann and Deutsche Telekom presented early March, their answer to Amazon’s Kindle reader. Today the world boss Carel Halff an initial assessment.

mm: Mr. Halff, the Tolino is now about two months on the market. How is business? Meets the magic weapon against Amazon’s Kindle expectations?

Halff: We are very satisfied. The figures that we have achieved up to now are, well above our ambitious plans.

mm: What does that mean? To date, the proportion of the world, yes Hugendubel and Thalia was the eBooks according to GfK at around 36 percent – slightly lower than the 41 percent of Amazon . Do you believe that here can make up ground against Amazon?

Halff: We expect that we could put something over Amazon. But it will only give specific figures in early May.

mm: The small booksellers in Tolino yes once not there. It is supposed to work but working to of fer them a platform. What is given the state

Half: We are an open system and have other partners invited to join. The connection is, however, technologically complex. There are meetings. I assume that also includes other partners. But the schedule today I can not say anything.

mm: It has many amazed that she and the other companies involved, most of which have already been sold with limited success eBooks now start together, one system. Many hold the train in view of the success of Amazon for long departed. And also in the United States have competitors like Kindle Nook by Barnes & Noble extreme fighting. What made you decide to venture again now restart

Halff: The eBook market is still a niche market. The market share stood at 3 percent in 2012, according to GfK. But it develops from 2013/2014 to an audience market. For a company like the world now is the right time to enter larger. But we were also in recent years been traveling with entry-level instruments and have also sold several hundred thousand of these devices. And we have hundreds of thousands of eBook customers. No, because nothing has been missed. The large market is still ahead of us.

mm: What growth do you expect

? Halff: The growth in the overall market, but also with us is enormous. We expect that the market will double in Germany this year at least. And eBooks are up to 2015 a market share of approximately 15 to 25 percent have.

mm: What is the situation with the devices that they have sold before Tolino. Will disappear from the market

Halff: We will use the Tolino device in focus. And it will not even stay for a device in this. And other devices that we have sold in the past, increasingly losing importance. I can also imagine that we let the leak completely.

More articles on this topic

further growth

Economic downturn can not stop Amazon

anti-Amazon strategy

As the book trade by almost lost ground fighting

Fell’s Heirs

How Mister Spex Brille24 and the glasses commercial churn

online trading

Amazon builds set-top box for TVs