Kobo Expands Retail Footprint Throughout the U.S., Announces Kobo Vox to be Sold at Best Buy

Kobo Expands eReader Category at Best Buy -
Kobo Vox Joins $99 Kobo Touch with Offers In-Store, $129 Kobo Touch and Kobo Wifi Online

TORONTO, Feb. 15, 2012 /CNW/ - Kobo, a global leader in eReading with over 7 million users in 170 countries worldwide, today announced the in-store availability of the Kobo Vox eReader at Best Buy stores across the United States and online at www.bestbuy.com. The Kobo Vox eReader, will be sold at Best Buy for $199 (USD), has seen strong adoption worldwide including Canada, the U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand.  The Kobo Vox offers a superior reading experience with access to Kobo's eBookstore that offers over 2.5 million eBooks, of which a million available to download and read for free. Best Buy will offer the Kobo Vox in all four stylish colors: Hot Pink, Lime Green, Ice Blue and Jet Black.

The Kobo Vox is the world's first social eReader, which enables readers to start conversations with other readers and discover new books and authors through their social network.  With a vivid color display, Kobo takes the reading experience to a whole new level - rich color books, newspapers, magazines, music, video, over 15,000 apps, games and social feeds - all on an open Android platform.

"We're excited to offer the Kobo Vox eReader in U.S. Best Buy locations where consumers can try our innovative social experience and see the difference that Kobo brings to eReading," said Todd Humphrey, EVP Business Development, Kobo, Inc.  "We're focused on delivering an innovative and easy eReading experience and our expanded footprint throughout the U.S. will allow consumers to experience Kobo first hand and find out why it is the favored choice of millions of readers around the world."

A World Class Reading Experience
Built by booklovers, for booklovers - people can access their entire library on the go, in an easy-to-hold, lightweight design with the Kobo signature comfortable quilted back designed to fit perfectly into the palm of a hand for hours of comfortable reading. The Kobo Vox delivers a superior reading experience that allows users to easily navigate their library, scroll through books, and turn pages with a tap or swipe, plus personalize their reading experience with highlights, annotations, adjustable fonts and more.  The Kobo Vox holds up to 8,000 eBooks -- with expandable SD card storage to hold up to 40,000 books -- and access to unlimited storage in the Kobo cloud.

The Most Advanced Multimedia Touch Screen
Featuring a brilliant multimedia touch screen, readers can experience text with high contrast resolution and immerse themselves in books, magazines, games and videos in vivid color.  Kobo uses the most advanced 7 inch FFS+ display, with anti-glare - the same technology used in airplane cockpits (there are no clouds at 30,000 feet) - for great reading indoors or outdoors and featuring an extra-wide angle for incredible viewing…ideal for shared reading and viewing.

Read in Vivid Color
Kobo's global ebook store - 2.5 million books and more than one million free - just got better with color and enhanced multimedia content.  Discover a new world of reading with rich vivid color content for all ages, including cookbooks, engaging travel guides, comic books, and graphic novels.  Parents and children can read together with Read Along children's books, a great way to spend quality time and a fun way to help children learn to read.

Experience More - the eReader for your Connected Life
In addition to reading Kobo Vox users can easily browse the Web, check email, listen to music, watch movies, play games and store personal photos.  Choose from a selection of pre-loaded top ranked entertainment apps:

• Over 4,800 popular magazines from Zinio®
• Newspapers from PressReader™ - over 2,000 newspapers from around the world
• Unlimited music from RDIO®
• Get social with Twitter® and Facebook®
• A book lover must-have: Merriam Webster's Dictionary
• Apps - over 15,000 FREE apps
• Access to music, photo, and video services in the app store

An eReader for Everyone in the Kobo Family of Products
In addition to the Kobo Vox, Best Buy currently sells the award-winning Kobo Touch with Offers eReader, which delivers an amazing touch experience with Infrared Touch Technology that allows readers to swipe or tap to easily turn pages.  Available in black for $99 in-store and online, Kobo Touch with Offers brings all of the award-winning features of the Kobo Touch eReader at a great ad-supported price.

With the intuitive new touch interface, readers can highlight a phrase, look up a word, zoom into an image, increase the font size, or quickly navigate through a book or their entire library. Plus finding that next read is also quick and easy with Wi-Fi and a virtual keyboard. Using the latest E Ink technology, it's just like reading print on paper, plus it is glare-free making it easy to read in bright sunlight.

Best Buy also sells the original Kobo Touch, available in an assortment of colors, for the low price of $129.

Freedom of Choice
At Kobo, we believe you should have the ability to read on any device.  Readers can download free Kobo eReading apps to read across the most popular devices including desktops, laptops, tablets, Android^TM phones, iPhones®, iPads®, Blackberry® Smartphones and PlayBooks.  Readers can also download their ebooks and read on a wide range of dedicated eReaders.

About Kobo, Inc.
Kobo is a global eReading service with more than 2.5 million eBooks, magazines and newspapers - one of the largest eReading catalogues in the world. Kobo believes that consumers should have the freedom to read any book on any device and has attracted millions of readers from over 170 countries across the globe.  Kobo has top ranked eReading applications for iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows and MacOS, and is the eReading application of choice for leading tablet OEMs.  Kobo eReaders, including the Kobo Touch and the newly launched Kobo Vox are available at leading retailers, including Indigo, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, Future Shop, WHSmith, FNAC, Libris Blz., Buy.com, Collins Booksellers and Whitcoulls.  Kobo's innovative Reading Life is an industry-first comprehensive social eReading experience - Kobo users can earn awards simply for time spent reading and encouraging others.

Wendy Zaas/Karina St. Jean
Rogers & Cowan
310.854.8148/212.878.5108
[email protected]
[email protected]