Sony passes business to Kobo and admits defeat to Kindle

Amazon’s Kindle has killed off Sony as the company is now giving up on e-readers.

Sony is pulling out of the e-reader arena which means that the PRS-T3 will be marked as the last version made and will exist as long as supplies remain in Europe.

A spokesperson for Sony spokesperson gave a statement to BBC News and said that:

We do not have plans to develop a successor Reader model at this time

The move comes just months after Sony shuttered its e-book distribution store in the US and Canada, making it less surprising that the company is killing off the associated hardware. North American customers using Sony Readers have been directed to buy books from Kobo since February this year, and European and Australian customers since May, a Sony spokeswoman said.

Sony will still keep selling its e-reader hardware in Japan alongside e-books from its online store. That might not mean much for its prospects in Sony’s home turf of Japan though.

While Sony and Kobo have attempted to beat Amazon’s e-readers, the Kindle became Japan’s top-selling e-reader taking 38.3% of the market just months after its launch in the region.

The Sony e-reader axing follows recent plans to give up on PlayStation Mobile for Android, and the selling off of its VAIO computer division earlier this year which returned last month under the control of a Japanese investment fund.