Today, its content reaches 190 countries, and has localized stores in 24. The company, founded in 2009, was built with the goal of operating in multiple markets worldwide, including in different languages and currencies. Rakuten says its relationship with Walmart is part of the company’s larger vision to serve a worldwide audience. Instead, the e-books can be accessed through co-branded iOS and Android apps, which also launched today. Today, customers will see a variety of Kobo e-readers for sale on Walmart’s e-commerce site, and later this week, Kobo Aura e-readers will hit 1,000 stores.īut customers won’t need to own a Kobo device to read these titles.

Walmart will also sell Rakuten-owned Kobo e-readers both online and in stores. The cards will roll out to 3,500 Walmart stores starting this week. These cards will be for popular books, like The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse-Tyson and Capital Gaines by Chip Gaines. The company says it will sell nearly 40 titles in stores by way of digital books cards. In addition, Walmart aims to capitalize on its brick-and-mortar stores to help boost Walmart eBooks.

While Audible subscriptions start at $14.95 per month for one audiobook, Walmart’s subscription is only $9.99 per month for the same. However, Walmart is undercutting Amazon on pricing. The new site, called Walmart eBooks, includes a library of over 6 million titles ranging from NYT best-sellers to indie titles and children’s books.Īnd similar to Amazon’s Audible, Walmart will also now offer a monthly audiobook subscription service. Today, Walmart is capitalizing on that relationship with the launch of a full e-book and audiobook catalog on, alongside its assortment of physical books. In January, Walmart partnered with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten on online grocery in Japan, as well as the sale of audiobooks, e-books, and e-readers in the U.S.

Kobo aura edition 2 walmart