Kobo Inc.

Kobo Inc. (previously Shortcovers) is the company that makes the Kobo eReader, and its headquarters is in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 2009. The company is owned by Rakuten, Inc. in Japan. Kobo was sold to Rakuten on 8 November 2011 and the transaction closed 11 January 2012.

Before this sale, the majority shareholder was Indigo Books and Music, where Kobo was originally a business division before being spun off. In addition to producing an ereader, Kobo also makes applications for the BlackBerry, BlackBerry PlayBook, iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. During the 2011 holiday season, the company saw record growth with its sales, sevenfold.

The company has strategic partnerships with Cheung Kong Holdings, W H Smith, Whitcoulls, and FNAC. In 2011, the company established a publishing arm.

'Kobo' is an anagram of 'book'.

Market Share

While hard independent market research numbers do not yet appear to be publically available for other markets, Michael Serbinis of Kobo has stated that their U.S. marketshare is in the “high single to low double digits.”

Kobo-owner Rakuten's CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has additionally stated that Kobo is "number one in France; they’re ahead of Amazon in Japan, partially because of us, and Australia and New Zealand as well."

Kobo Writing Life

In July 2012 Kobo unveiled Kobo Writing Life, a platform upon which authors can self-publish their work directly via Kobo's ecosystem, avoiding the middle man.

Kobo eBook Store

eBooks as well as newspapers and magazines can be downloaded directly from the Kobo website as well as formerly from the Borders eBook Store. Users could transfer their Borders eBooks to their Kobo library following the closure of Borders.