Bookmate moves into Indonesia with Indosat
Bookmate and Indosat announce partnership to bring mobile reading to Indonesian book lovers
LONDON and JAKARTA, 24 August 2015: Bookmate, the leading social ebook reading service today announced its partnership with Indosat, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunication networks and service providers to launch a mass market mobile reading service under the Bookmate-Cipika Books brand. The union expands Bookmate’s services to reading fans in the Indonesian market.
Ahead of the launch, Bookmate has signed deals with the leading Indonesian publishers to bring 4,000 titles in Bahasa in addition to its library of 250,000 English language titles.
This expansion comes after Bookmate’s first launch in the Asia Pacific market last year with StarHub, Singapore’s fully-integrated info-communications provider.
The Asian ebook market is forecasted to reach $2.2 billion by the end of 2016 and with high levels of smartphone penetration this provides an ideal basis for Bookmate to introduce its mobile reading service.
Andrew Baev, Managing Director of Bookmate, commented:
“The global book publishing industry is worth $120 Billion, about 8x the size of the music industry, and we are seeing an accelerating transition to digital and mobile. Our strategy is to focus on high growth, under-served markets where readers are jumping the gap directly from paper to mobile reading. Indonesia is right in our sweet spot for offering our mix of fun, social and on-the-go reading.”
“We are excited to announce our partnerships with Indosat which will bring mobile reading to a large number of mobile users via a hard-bundled offering. Smartphone penetration and mobile services growth are booming in Indonesia and we see this as a huge opportunity to build the market leader in mobile reading together with Indosat, Indonesia’s most progressive mobile operator.”
Carlos Caro Caro, Division Head Digital Commerce at Indosat, commented: “Indonesians are keen consumers of all types of media via their mobile phones and we are excited to be able to offer them an innovative mobile reading solution with our partner Bookmate. Local readers will now be able to enjoy the experience of a state-of-the art mobile reading service under the Bookmate Cipika-Books brand. Together with Bookmate we will be offering a broad catalogue of local and international authors in English and Bahasa languages and Indosat customers will have the chance to use this service for free.”
Stephen Lee, Head of i3 at StarHub, commented: “We are delighted that Bookmate is continuing its international expansion in this region, starting with us in Singapore and now with our Conexus Mobile Alliance partner Indosat. Bookmate’s unlimited book streaming service has revolutionised reading, and through our close collaboration with Asian telco partners, we want to bring the fun and ease of ebook reading to more mobile users in this part of the world.”
About Bookmate
Bookmate is a subscription-based social reading service that makes reading accessible to anyone in the world with a mobile phone. With more than 2.5 million active users and over 500,000 titles in eleven languages.
www.bookmate.com/about for more information.
About Indosat
Indosat is the second largest cellular operator in the country with more than 55 million subscribers. Indosat is one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunication networks and services provider. Indosat offers (prepaid and postpaid) mobile phone services (Mentari, IM3 and Matrix), fixed voice services (including International Direct Dialing (IDD)), fixed wireless and fixed telephone services. The company also provides Multimedia, Internet & Data Communication Services (MIDI).
http://indosat.com/id/personal for more information.
