Amazon's launch in Spain presages sites in other countries

Amazon expanded its European network to Spain on Wednesday 18 September, with a new site amazon.es opened to online shoppers.

It offered books in Spanish and the Catalan, Galician and Basque languages with a minimum discount of five percent and free delivery for purchases above 19 euros ($US 26/ $NZ 33).

"Amazon arrives in Spain," the site declared, ahead of an official announcement. "Now you can make your purchases in Spanish."

But Amazon's big-selling Kindle electronic book reader and accompanying electronic books were not on offer directly from the Spanish site.

Spanish daily El Pais cited "editorial sources" as saying Amazon would start selling the Kindle and its catalogue of electronic books in Spain before the end of the year.

The paper said Amazon had been stocking up books for a year ready for the launch and had struck agreements with publishers including Random House Mondadori and Santillana.

Besides its US and Canadian outlets, the online retailer already has European sites for Britain, France and Italy along with Asian sites for Japan and China.

Amazon sites had 282.2 million visitors in June, or 20.4 percent of the worldwide Internet population, US tracking firm comScore said in a report last month on the top global retail and auction sites.

"Amazon is entering a phase of rapid international expansion, similar to 1998-2002 when it launched in 5 new countries in 5 years - UK and Germany in 1998, France and Japan in 2000, Canada in 2002," Mayuresh Masurekar, an analyst at Collins Stewart, wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday.
After entering China in 2004, Amazon took a breather from international expansion for 6 years. But in late 2010, the company launched in Italy.
Masurekar expects Amazon to start websites in the Netherlands, Sweden and India within the next three to four years.
International expansion will help revenue grow, but it could hit profits, at least in the short term. That's because Amazon has to spend money upfront to build warehouses, accumulate inventory and set up shipping and other logistics.
The company also tends to offer promotional discounts when it enters new markets.
"International expansion supports our thesis of higher revenues and lower margins," Masurekar said.