Last month, Rakuten inked a deal with Panasonic to distribute e-book titles to buyers of Panasonic e-book readers. The service, dubbed Raboo (Rakuten Books), was initially limited to Panasonic hardware only, but now The Nikkei is quoting a Rakuten representative that his company will expand it to other platforms, too.
Rakuten launched Raboo on Wednesday, and according to The Nikkei, Raboo will become available on cell phones from Docomo and other carriers plus Sony’s e-book readers within this year. In addition, Raboo will be made available in a PC version as early as this month.
Rakuten says that in one to two years, 95% of all e-books published in the country will be covered by their service.