Mumbai: Amazon is set to bring Audible to India by early next year and has started beta testing it .Amazon, which has launched global products like Prime and Alexa, is piloting the service among its employees internally at and wants to roll it out at large in another 3-4 months.
Acquired by Amazon in 2008 for $300 million, Audible sells digital audio-books, radio and TV programmes as well as audio versions of magazines and newspapers including The New York Times.
Amazon has created a select bouquet of audio-books including top sellers and classics for its internal team here. Sources said the internet behemoth will increase the offerings under Audible in the run up-to the India launch. In the US, Audible is free for Prime users while non-Prime users can avail the same for almost $ 7 per month. The US- e-tailer hasn’t decided how much it will charge Indian users for Audible here. Going by the introductory price for Amazon Prime over a year ago, the online retailer could offer Audible at a lower rate compared to the US here.
Amazon spokesperson said in an e-mailed response, “We are always looking to continue to develop our offerings on behalf of our global membership base. As in the past we don’t talk about new products and services until they are available, but please stay tuned!.”
Amazon’s move to bring Audible is not surprising given the focus on India. Amazon’s international business for the last quarter swelled to almost $1 billion owing to continued India investments. Amit Agarwal, Amazon India head said that they were not looking to clock profits at this time India and it will instead keep investing to widen the e-commerce base. So far, Amazon has committed $5 billion for the India market.
