Amazon Kindle Coming to China Soon?

Amazon Kindle’s Chinese Help documentation was spotted on its China site, spurred a new round of speculation as to its rough trip to China – is Kindle coming to China soon, for real this time?

Well, Amazon China responded: No comments on rumor. The documentation has been removed as of now.

Not the first time Chinese Kindle fans’ heart shattered by merciless truth. The popular e-reader was rumored to make its presence in China in 2010 as local media broke that an internal document of Amazon China showed Kindle got a Chinese name Jing Du (or Golden Reading), a sign being read as its stepping toes into China. And after nearly two years, Kindle still lingers outside the Middle Kingdom.

As Apple’s recent blockbuster Q2 results implies that China, the second largest market for Apple, has become a powerhouse for the Cupertino-based company’s current revenue and future growth, it’s time for the giant e-tailer to speed up and take Kindle families into China, especially when the growing of tablets (iPad and all those Android tablets included) is hurting e-reader sales, according to a Digitimes Research report.

There’re already many local e-readers with cheap price tag existed in the market, like Shanda’s Bambook and Hanvon’s WISEreader, which accounted for 19.6% and 59.6% respectively of China’s e-reader market in the third quarter of last year, according to a report by Beijing-based technology consultancy AnalysysInternational. Both companies lowered the price of their devices in last year, the cheapest models are available at RMB 499 (about US$ 79).

Wang Hanhua, president of Amazon China said in late last year that Kindle for sure is coming to China, with no exact timetable.