Amazon Kindle Unlimited: £6 a month “Netflix for books” ebook subscription service launches
Amazon has officially launched its new book subscription service Kindle Unlimited after details of the new offering leaked earlier in the week.
Dubbed the “Netflix for books”, Amazon Unlimited will offer customers unlimited access to selected books and audiobooks, including best sellers such as Harry Potter and the Hunger Games, for a monthly fee of $9.99- around six pounds.
In addition to launching on Kindle ebook devices the service is also available on Amazon’s iOS and Android reading app.
The subscription model, already successfully employed for TV and film services such as Netflix and by Spotify for music, signals a renewed focus on ongoing and more lucrative content sales rather than hardware sales of Kindle devices which have remained largely flat since peaking in 2011.
Forbes estimates the online retailer makes between $265m to $530m a year from e-book sales.
Kindle unlimited is currently only available int he US for now and Amazon have not given any details any plans to roll out the service elsewhere.