FeBe is owned by Otobanku, Japan’s leading audiobook distributor/publisher. Otobanku has deals with 400 Japanese publishers, and is even providing 2,000 titles to Audible’s new service.Ī.I am a hardcore Audiobook lover with a library of over 380 books, and I have a full subscription to Audible and Scribd. This service boasts a catalog of 13,000 audiobook titles, with prices ranging from 1,400 yen to 2,400 yen. Only the streaming service is mentioned on .jp, and Audible makes it clear in its FAQ there are no options to buy the audiobooks.įor that, listeners would have to go to Amazon’s competitor, FeBe.jp.

Amazon is pitching this service as a great feature for smartphones rather than pushing the service on its own Fire tablets.Ĭuriously, Amazon is not selling audiobooks in Japan. The new Audible Unlimited service is closer to streaming services like Spotify, where subscribers are paying for access and not buying the content.Īmazon’s Japanese customers can now subscribe for 1,500 yen (~$12.20) per month and listen to as many audiobooks as they like on Audible’s apps for Android and iOS. That service more closely resembles a 'book of the month club' where subscribers pay for one, two, or three audiobooks each month.

(Amazon bought Audible in 2008 for $300 million.)Īudible Unlimited is not to be confused with Audible’s existing subscription service, which is available in the US, UK, Germany, France, and other markets. Last week Amazon launched an unlimited audiobook service in Japan which (for want of a better name) I am going to call Audible Unlimited. The new service boasts a catalog of approximately 2,000 titles (according to press reports Amazon says 8,000).Īccording to one report Amazon plans to expand the catalog to 10,000 titles by the end of the year. In comparison, has a catalog of over 150,000 titles for sale. The two-month-old reports that Amazon is going to launch an unlimited audiobook service in Germany are still nothing more than rumors, but the service which launched in Japan earlier this month is considerably more real.

Amazon Launches an Audible Unlimited Service in Japan

Audible subscription cost