Kindle Coming to French Virgin Megastores, Kindle Fire Not Included

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Amazon’s Kindle devices are usually available from the retailer’s online stores unless you happen to want to purchase one in France. In this case you may be interested in walking into a Virgin Megastore outlet and get a feel of the Kindle reader you’re about to buy before paying for it.

According to Reuters, Amazon has reached a deal with Virgin to sell its popular eReader in Virgin’s stores in the nation in order to “inject life into a market that has been slow to take off in the country.”

Virgin is now an exclusive Amazon Kindle reseller in the nation, and apparently Amazon really needs such partnership to stay relevant in the market:

“In certain countries, Amazon hasn’t managed to establish it because it launched only on the Internet,” said Jean-Louis Raynard, head of Virgin Megastore France. “They’re going to really change their policy to establish successfully in France.”

What about the Kindle Fire, you’ll ask. The deal does not include Amazon’s first tablet but we’re not really surprised to hear that, are we? Just like Apple, Amazon controls everything when it comes to the content streams natively available on the Fire. And while the company can offer Kindle Fire buyers in the U.S. plenty of eBooks, movies, music and apps, it may not be able to extend all of its offerings to other markets including European countries.

That’s probably why Amazon has not announced launch plans for other regions yet, as it wouldn’t make sense to offer a cheap tablet stripped of most of the content currently available to U.S. buyers to international tablet buyers. Because without content, the Kindle Fire isn’t that appealing anymore despite its low price tag, not to mention that not it isn’t compatible with Google Android features, including the Android Market. On top of that, its unique browsing solution may also not be particularly liked in other international markets due to certain privacy concerns.

What do you say, French Kindle fans, will you buy any Kindle version from Virgin this year?