Kobo Expands With Dedicated Kids Store And Groundbreaking Magazine Experience

-- Coming this fall, popular glossy mags go digital with Kobo's innovative Guided Reading experience, company offers more titles and dedicated accounts for kids and teens

TORONTO, Aug. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Kobo, a global leader in eReading, announced today that it will bring the world's most popular fashion, science, business, and technology magazines to its Readers along with a new dedicated Kids store with safe-search features and  accounts for kids this fall. The company has signed top magazine publishers including Conde Nast, Hearst Corporation, American Media, Mansueto, Bauer Publishing Group, Mondadori, Rogers Publishing Limited, and Reader's Digest, showcasing their top titles using Kobo's new Guided Reading experience. The company has also expanded its children's selection with titles like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Day Crayons Quit, Wonder, and Catching Fire to almost 100,000, giving kids and parents more choice, convenience, and value. Kobo's magazine and kids experiences are available in North America starting in September via its free eReading apps for iOS and Android, with the company's new Kobo Arc lineup of tablets hitting stores this October, and will be available internationally by end of year.

"The same passionate readers who have chosen Kobo for their fiction and non-fiction want Kobo for more parts of their Reading Life," said Michael Tamblyn, Chief Content Officer, Kobo. "They want magazines that preserve the visual richness found in paper. They want a store that guides them to new great books for their kids – and so do we. We are launching what we believe is the best digital magazine experience to be found anywhere as well as launching a store at Kobo.com focused entirely on children's books."  

VISUALLY STUNNING MAGAZINE CONTENT
Perfected for Kobo's free apps for Android and iOS platforms and the company's stunning new lineup of Kobo Arc tablets, such as the newly-released Kobo Arc 10HD, Readers can now enjoy hundreds of their favourite pop culture, health, sports and style magazines, with new titles being added every day. Kobo preserves the experience intended by magazine publishers, with a visually rich display that makes reading easy on any tablet or smartphone using Kobo's Guided Reading. Guided Reading replaces panning and zooming around a page with a simple one-tap interface that intelligently moves from one column of text to the next. Removing distractions so Readers can focus on the content, Kobo eliminates the need for toolbars – creating a more crisp and clean interface. The new experience, developed with the same digital publishing tools Kobo offers to publishers, significantly improves the magazine reading experience, letting Readers enjoy magazines for what they are – the perfect mix of ideas, entertainment, and design.

DIGITAL READING IS FUN FOR KIDS
In a whitepaper published by Kobo, Scholastic contributed that of children who have read an eBook, one in five said that they are reading more books for fun. In addition, almost half of all children ages six to 17 said they would read more books for fun if they had greater access to eBooks. With Kobo's new Kids Store and colourful, interactive eBooks, Kobo makes it easier to find the next great book for children and young adult Readers, with the latest bestselling series, Read Along books, and colourful picture-books.

This fall, Kobo will be offering parents the ability to set up dedicated accounts for their kids so that they can safely explore the amazing titles within the Kobo eBookstore. With almost 100,000 titles in its library, Kobo will give parents the ability to set spending allowances for their kids, pre-select eBooks, and adjust search-settings to keep their kids reading safely.  Parents are also able to set reading goals for kids and track their progress with engaging reading stats – all features designed to make eReading an educational, fun, and friendly experience. The dedicated Kids Store will be available this September in North America, United Kingdom, France, and Italy, and will then be made available internationally.

For more information, please visit www.kobo.com.

About Kobo Inc.
Kobo Inc. is one of the world's fastest-growing eReading services offering 4-million eBooks, magazines and newspapers to millions of customers in 190 countries.  Believing that consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device, Kobo provides consumers with a choice when reading. Kobo offer an eReader for everyone with a wide variety of E Ink eReaders and Google-Certified Android tablets to suit any Reader's style including the award-winning Kobo Touch™, Kobo Mini, Kobo Glo, Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Arc, Kobo Arc 7, Kobo Arc 7HD, and Kobo Arc 10HD. Along with the company's free top-ranking eReading apps for Apple®, BlackBerry®, Android®, and Windows®, Kobo ensures the next great read is just a page-turn away. Headquartered in Toronto and owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten, Kobo eReaders can be found in major retail chains around the world. For more information, visit www.kobo.com.

For more information please contact:
Cerys Goodall
Sr. Director, Public Relations
cgoodall@Kobo.com
+1-647-282-1181