E-book Provider Kobo Bets on BlackBerry Playbook

Canadian e-reading service provider Kobo Inc hopes to find success riding on the back of the BlackBerry PlayBook and other tablet computers even as it continues to expand its own line up of e-readers. Kobo, a nine-month-old spinoff of Canadian book retailer Indigo Books & Music, is looking to leap ahead in the e-book market by trying to become the standard e-reading source on tablets and smartphones. Kobo said it will come preloaded on the BlackBerry PlayBook, Research In Motion's entry into the growing tablet computer market, which was introduced earlier this week. It will also be pre-installed on Samsung's new tablet, the Galaxy Tab. "Our goal overall is to make it possible for a customer to get an e-book on any device," Kobo Chief Executive Mike Serbinis told Reuters in an interview. "We believe the tablet category is a hot category and clearly Samsung, RIM are two of the leaders. The question is, who's left? You can't get preloaded on an iPad -- it's an Apple thing," he said.

Kobo declined to comment on the financial aspects of the RIM and Samsung deals and it has not released any sales figures, but Serbinis said millions of e-books have been downloaded through Kobo in the last nine months. Cormark Securities analyst David McFadgen rated Indigo, which owns 57.7 percent of Kobo, a "top pick" and wrote in a research note: "We believe this is very positive for Indigo and Kobo given users are likely to use the pre-installed app." Kobo will also be embedded into BlackBerry's popular messenger service, allowing users to share books and create live, book-driven social networking groups.