Bookeen Press Release / Increased partnership with Thalia, Germany
After launching the Cybook Odyssey in June, Bookeen, the European leader in e-reading, joined forces with Thalia, the #1 Bookseller in Germany, to lead the digital market in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In November Thalia will launch Bookeen’s Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight and the Cybook Odyssey 2013 Edition within 300 stores.
Thalia will be the exclusive German bookseller selling the Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight during the Christmas period.
Thalia will offer the brand new Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight, the best illuminated e-reader ever. With this device Bookeen brings to Thalia premium technology ahead of what Amazon and Kobo are offering. Thalia will also sell the Cybook Odyssey 2013 edition. Both Cybook Odysseys will be provided with a Thalia e-book store embedded.
This announcement further strengthens Bookeen’s international strategy which is focused on delivering e-reading devices on a global basis with a Cybook Odyssey e-reader solution and a strong content management system.
This partnership affirms Bookeen’s position as the only European competitor to the Amazon Kindle and Kobo e-readers.
Michael Busch, Thalia CEO:
“We at Thalia have a solid foundation of experience in eBooks and eReading. This expanded partnership with Bookeen, after a very successful launch in June, is therefore an important step as it brings together our common experience in this domain. Our customers will be able to discover Bookeen’s new FrontLight technology within major bookshops thanks to our expert booksellers. The rapid developments in the e-reader market as well as the increase in the distribution of eBooks justifies Thalia’s strategy to invest in this sector.”
Michael Dahan, Bookeen CEO:
“Thalia has clearly proven to be one of the most influential booksellers in Europe by taking a leading position in this new digital revolution. We had an amazing start to our partnership during the summer and this is a great opportunity for Bookeen to broaden this collaboration by bringing our new products and innovation to German customers by working with Thalia. By offering our new Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight exclusively to Thalia in Germany this is clearly a key step in our partnership going forward.”
Based in Paris, France, selling Cybooks in more than 50 countries, the Bookeen team – experts in ebooks since 1998 – have developed numerous e-reading solutions over the past 13 years (Hardware and software). Bookeen is proud to be bringing innovation to the market through this new FrontLight technology or HSIS, a technology featured for the first time in its Cybook Odyssey device.
Bookeen also offers its very own bookstore solution, featured on the Cybook Orizon & Odyssey devices and accessible online at BookeenStore.com
Jean-François Kitten, jf@licencek.com +33 6 11 29 30 28.
Imogen Bailey, i.bailey@licencek.com +33 1 83 64 77 06
The Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight is the brand new e-reader from Bookeen. The HD FrontLight technology enables e-book pages to be illuminated with a layer of light and is inbuilt with a High Definition tactile screen which uses e-ink. This new e-reader benefits from an unparalleled rapidity thanks to Bookeen’s High Speed Ink System and it is also optimized with an autonomy which allows many weeks of reading time. The Bookeen interface has been improved yet again to produce an ultra intuitive navigation for the tactile screen or mechanical buttons. The interface enables PDF Reflow (simplification of the formatting of PDFs). Free dictionaries are offered and the Cybook Odyssey HD FrontLight is enriched with a range of content which the reader can increase just with a few touches of the screen in order to freely access the online library of their choice via Wi-Fi connection.
With nearly 300 bookstores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, around 5270 employees and an annual turnover of around € 935 million (2010/11) Thalia is market leader in the retail book trade within German-speaking countries. The company is also a true multi-channel dealer in the German book market: equally competent and close to the reader in both classical bookstores and its online shop, Thalia offers its customers competence and inspiring shopping experience in “real” and in the “virtual” world of books. Thalia, is part of Douglas Holding AG.
For more information and details regarding Thalia, please contact:
Ms. Mirjam Berle
Head of Corporate Communication & Social Relations
Thalia Holding GmbH, Kabeler Straße 4, D-58099 Hagen
Phone: +49(0)2331/690-6319, Fax: +49(0)2331/690-6322, Mobile: +49(0)175/2434539
E-Mail: m.berle@thalia.de
