Amazon expands network to Spain

Amazon expanded its European network to Spain on Wednesday, with a new site amazon.es opened to online shoppers. It offered books in Spanish and the Catalan, Galician and Basque languages with a minimum discount of five percent and free delivery for purchases above 19 euros ($26). The retailer was also selling DVDs, software and home appliances and electronics. "Amazon arrives in Spain," the site declared, ahead of an official announcement. "Now you can make your purchases in Spanish." But Amazon's big-selling Kindle electronic book reader and accompanying electronic books were not on offer directly from the Spanish site. Spanish daily El Pais last week cited "editorial sources" as saying Amazon would start selling the Kindle and its catalogue of electronic books in Spain before the end of the year. The paper said Amazon had been stocking up books for a year ready for the launch and had struck agreements with publishers including Random House Mondadori and Santillana. Besides its US and Canadian outlets, the online retailer already has European sites for Britain, France and Italy along with Asian sites for Japan and China. Amazon sites had 282.2 million visitors in June, or 20.4 percent of the worldwide Internet population, US tracking firm comScore said in a report last month on the top global retail and auction sites.