Kindle is leaving China, and here’s how it will affect you

Photograph: Perfecto Capucine via Unsplash

Another prominent U.S. tech firm is retracting its business from the Middle Kingdom. Amazon announced the news via its official WeChat account last Thursday (2 June), confirming the company will close its e-books business in China next year. 

The first move sees Kindle e-readers being removed from shelves as of 2 June. Customers who bought the device via certified suppliers after 1 January 2022 are entitled to return goods for a full refund until 31 October 2022 (check the policy in Chinese here). 

The next step is to stop selling e-books from the Kindle China e-bookstore by the end of June 2023, followed by the removal of the Kindle app from Chinese app stores in 2024, thus marking the end of Amazon’s decade-long electronic-book business in China. 

For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, membership is valid until 30 June 2023 and a refund is available for any remaining months.

This is not the only strategic move Amazon has made over the years. The American online retailer shut down its China online store in 2019, focusing on its other business ventures in China, such as cross-border e-commerce, advertising and cloud services.

The company launched its electronic-book business in China and started selling Kindle shortly after October 2012. Sales figures were performing so well that in 2017 China became Kindle’s largest global market, accounting for 40 per cent of their world sales. 

While Chinese media attribute the Kindle pullback to fierce competition against local e-reading devices and reading APPs as well as online piracy, others suspect growingly restrictive policies that foreign businesses have to comply with, especially in the fields of publishing and cloud technology. 

Nevertheless, it’s time to stock up on e-books before it's too late. 

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