Walmart’s latest move to compete with Amazon is a Kobo e-book and audiobook store

Walmart's latest move to stay competitive with Amazon as the two retailers expand aggressively into new markets is an ebook and audiobook store with its Japan partner Rakuten. Rakuten, which has owned Canadian e-reader brand Kobo since 2011, partnered with Walmart back in January to distribute Kobo e-readers in the US with preloaded and co-branded software for buying digital books. Now, the two companies are taking the partnership one step further with the launch of Walmart eBooks.

The store has more than 6 million titles and an Audible-like monthly subscription service for audiobooks. In an attempt to pull customers away from Audible, Walmart's audiobook subscription costs only $9.99, compared to Audible's introductory $14.95 price, as...

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