Sony manufactured the last batch of its Reader devices outside Japan in May

Sony has quit selling its line involving Reader devices for e-books after failing to discover a big enough market.

"We don't have plans to develop some sort of successor Reader model at the moment, " the Japanese firm told the BBC.

The PRS-T3 was the last version made and will exist as long as supplies remain in Europe.

Earlier this year, Sony pulled out involving selling e-books and directed its users in the us and Europe to this e-bookstore of rival Kobo.

United states customers using Sony Readers are already directed to buy books from Kobo since February this coming year, and European and Foreign customers since May, some sort of Sony spokeswoman said.

Although users in Japan, Sony's household country, can continue to still get its line of Readers and access Sony's Viewer Store.

The news was initially reported by German website Lesen.

The dominance of Amazon's variety of Kindles and the increasing smartphone, tablet and so-called phablet market have achieved it hard for Sony's package of e-readers and competitors like Nook to carve out a niche for themselves. According to the Bookseller, Amazon has around 90% from the dedicated e-reader market in england.

Canadian firm Kobo had been bought by Japanese e-commerce organization Rakuten, which is looking to grow its business globally in the bid to challenge Amazon online marketplace.

The global market in dedicated e-readers peaked in 2011 with 23 thousand devices sold, but is expected to fall to 10 thousand by 2017 as devices and tablets eat in the overall market, according to the research consultancy Gartner.

Even now, the sale of printed books is going to be outstripped by e-books simply by 2018, a report simply by Pricewaterhouse Coopers suggested.

Source : BBC