Google are taking a big step this week by announcing the launch of its Android Jelly Bean-sporting tablet in a new country, the Google Nexus 7, which will soon be released in Japan for the first time.
Whilst Google has a very good foothold over in the western world, our friends in Japan are less aware of the mega brand and so the release of the tablet will be a big step for Google as they try to expand into a very competitive country and market.
The Nexus 7 tablet will go on sale from October 2nd and is available on the Japanese Play Store at ¥19,800 (about £157) for the 16GB model, and for the first time Google will also be launching its Google Play Books in Japan to add to the features on the devices.
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt held the press conference that announced the Japanese Google Nexus 7 and showed his enthusiasm for the Japanese market by stating that Japan has the third highest number of Google Play installs worldwide and at 75 percent, customers in Japan proportionally make more purchases on their devices than anywhere else.
There seems to be a bit of a rush race for the big western tech companies to bring eReading to Japan as the system has yet to take off, and with Apple, Amazon and now Google all expressing interest in launching and expanding into the Japanese market we can see all three companies throwing a lot of products and features that way.
Japan has potentially huge market due to its large affluent population that has a penchant for technology, but consumers tend to be drawn to their homeland companies such as Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic and tend to buy more of their products than brands popular in the western world, like the Amazon Kindle and the Google Nexus 7.
However, Google do have a decent foothold on Japan thanks to its Android OS, with many smartphones using the operating system as a base, so the Nexus 7 may find a decent foothold in the Japanese market.
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