Amazon tries to Kindle e-book sales
Amazon.com Inc. is hoping to invigorate a nascent market for electronic books by launching its own e-book reader with free wireless connectivity.
Monday’s announcement comes as e-books remain a sliver of overall book sales, partly because they lack the comfort of bound paper.
Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said the online retailer spent three years developing the Kindle reader, which the company is selling online for $399.
Rather than try to “outbook” the bound book, Bezos said, Amazon designed Kindle with the e-book’s strengths in mind.
It is thinner than most paperbacks and weighs 10.3 ounces. Yet it can hold some 200 books, along with newspapers, magazines and an entire dictionary.
Readers can buy and download books directly to the Kindle through Sprint Nextel Corp.’s high-speed EV-DO cellular network without fees or contract commitments.
Best sellers and new releases will typically go for $9.99.
SABMiller, the world’s third-largest brewer, said Monday it will bid $1.2 billion for Grolsch, the Dutch beer with a distinctive swivel cap.
Grolsch is the second-largest Dutch brewer after Heineken, with approximately 15 percent market share in the Netherlands.
In a joint statement, the companies said Grolsch would back the 48.25 euros ($70.57) per share offer.
Grolsch NV shares leapt 75.65 percent to close at 47.25 euros ($69.30) in Amsterdam.
Shares in SABMiller PLC fell 2.83 percent, closing at 13.06 pounds ($26.84) in London.
Lowe’s Cos. cited a weak sales environment amid a continuing slump in the housing sector Monday as reasons for a 10.2 percent drop in third-quarter profit.
The nation’s second largest home improvement chain said an industry recovery won’t occur in early 2008 either as it cut its outlook for the fourth quarter and the full year.
Its shares tumbled more than 7 percent Monday after hitting a new 52-week low earlier in the day.
It’s been a tough quarter for home-improvement retailers. Home Depot Inc., Lowe’s bigger rival, reported a 27 percent drop in third-quarter earnings last week and cut its full-year outlook, citing the persistent housing slump.
Mooresville, N.C.-based Lowe’s said it earned $643 million, or 43 cents a share, for the three months ended Nov. 2, down from $716 million, 46 cents a share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose to $11.6 billion from $11.2 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales, or sales in stores open at least one year, a key measure of industry performance, fell 4.3 percent.
From wire reports