The United States largest online retailer Amazon, announced that the company will invest in the Tata Group's publishing house known as Westland. The total investment made by Amazon will give the company a 26 percent stake in the India's fastest growing publishing company and will help the company to expand internationally.
According to The Times of India, the purchase was made from Westland's current biggest shareholder Trent, in a deal worth Rs 9.5 Crore. The news agency also revealed that the agreement done with Trent Ltd will allow Amazon to buy the remaining stake in the company if they wanted too.
The news is also confirmed by Trent when asked by Business Standard. According to Trent's statement to the news agency, "The investment would facilitate Westland to take Indian authors and their works to a far wider audience."
Closing a deal with Amazon is what Westland has been hoping for and welcome with an open heart by the publishing house. Its CEO, Gautam Padmanabhan said that, "This investment from a company with such deep experience in books, global reach, and exciting digital platforms will help us take our Indian authors and their works globally."
Data compiled by The Economic Times revealed that India's book market is currently worth Rs 10,000 Crore and the country ranks in seventh place in the overall publishing value in a country. Currently, the country's book publishing industry is growing at a rate of 30 percent annually.
The majority of book readers in India are the adults with a total of 600 million compared to the teenagers which make up of only 350 million people.
Westland is currently the fifth largest publisher in India with book publishing that focuses mainly from the Indian author. Although the company has not recorded any great revenue just yet, its recent operation restructuring by exiting any losing distribution business will allow the company to start making lots of profit for this fiscal year.
Currently, eight out of 20 top Indian authors working with Westland and the investment will entitle Amazon the right to sell them through its online shop and further increase its profit for sales in India. Among the best-selling authors under Westland are Amish, Ashwin Sanghi, Kiran Doshi and Ashok Banker.
Director of Amazon Publishing, Sarah Jane Gunter, said in a statement that the company will try their best to make sure the authors will be able to reach more audience globally. Lots of other international company place their bid to acquire the stake in Westland, however, Amazon emerged as the winner as the company had a great experience in the international publishing industry.
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