Amazon Branded MVNO for UK Kindle Launch

Amazon is reported to be close ­to signing an MVNO contract in the UK as it prepares to launch its e-book reader, the Kindle into the European market. The UK trade magzine, Mobile Today added that Amazon is understood to have outsourced all aspects of manufacturing for the Kindle in the UK to Qualcomm, including the MVNO management.

The online retailer is working towards a launch in the UK for the peak Christmas shopping season.

Deals with Vodafone and Orange may prove difficult as the two operators are working on their own branded e-book readers in Germany and France.

A spokesman for Amazon said: "We have previously announced that we are looking to release the Kindle with our international customers. At the moment we have no timeline."

The US based Kindle is CDMA only, while the UK version is expected to support both 3G cellular data as well as Wi-Fi connectivity. There have been previous speculation that the UK operators were unwilling to sign the unlimited mobile data deal that Sprint agreed to in the USA, and hence wanted the Wi-Fi fallback for content downloads.

On the web: Mobile Today

Posted to the site on 15th July 2009