Mexico

Amazon Mexico has finally launched its full retail operations and a print bookstore . Previously it had offered just Kindle e-books through a store that opened in 2013.

There's no telling what took them so long to open in Mexico. After all, isn't Mexico, with its population of 120 million people, one one of the most desirable markets in the world?

Still, the market is rather young and nascent. A report from Forrester suggests that Mexico's online market will hit $5.5 billion by 2018, with some 18 million online buyers.

In a new report, German ebook distribution platform Bookwire forecasts that digital sales will represent between 10% and 15% of total sales in the Latin American markets by 2020. Today, it represents 1% across the whole region.

The Spanish-language markets represent over 500 million Spanish speakers mainly living in Latin America and Spain, along with the US, where the latest census counted over 50 million people of Hispanic or Latino origin, including nearly 40 million who speak Spanish at home.

Amazon released its monthly KDP Select report yesterday, and the news was unsurprising.

The report revealed that last month Amazon was paying indie publishers and authors  an average of $1.41 each time an ebook was loaned from Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Owner's Lending Library. The loans were funded out of a pool of some $8 million, and with a little math and the back of an envelope we reach an estimated 5.67 million loans for February.

Amazon has launched its Kindle Unlimited subscription ebook service in Canada and Mexico, its eighth and ninth market respectively.

Today's news comes more than six months after the service first launched in the U.S., and a little over four months after it landed in the U.K.

For CDN$9.99 ($8 USD) or 129 pesos ($8.60 USD), subscribers can access 750,000 ebooks, though it's worth noting that you won't be able to access all the latest bestsellers - many of them are self-published titles created through Kindle Direct Publishing.

Manuvo's work has been praised by local media and recognized for its innovative approach to e-publishing. The British Embassy in Mexico awarded them an award for Most Innovative Company in 2013. They also received the Best Design Award from technology blog The Next Day in 2012 and the Emblematic Work Award from the Iberoamerican Council of Interior Designers in 2013.