Westland, a Trent Ltd subsidiary (Tata Group), has announced an investment from Amazon in support of its publishing business.

The investment by Amazon will enable Westland to expand its international reach and scale its physical and digital book businesses.

Westland had last year dragged Amazon's rival, Flipkart, to court, alleging that the e-commerce company was violating copyrights and the IT Act by selling Amish Tripathi's novel Scion of Ikshvaku on its platform. Westland had signed a two-month exclusive deal with Amazon to sell the book through its online platform.

Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO of Westland said, "Amazon's roots are in books and they remain a major part of their business — this investment from a company with such a deep experience in books, global reach and exciting digital platforms will help us take our Indian authors and their works globally.”

Sarah Jane Gunter, Director of Amazon Publishing said: "Our investment in Westland continues Amazon's commitment to innovating and investing heavily on behalf of customers in India."

"The investor (Amazon) would subscribe to Westland's share capital such that it holds 26 per cent of Westland's share capital on a fully diluted basis for an aggregate amount of approximately Rs 9.5 crore," Trent Ltd said in a BSE filing.

With an estimated market segment of Rs 10,000 crore, India ranks seventh in overall publishing and third after the US and the UK in English language publishing.

According to a recent FICCI Publishing Sector Report, book publishing in India is growing at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 30 per cent. With an estimated 600 million adult readers in the country and a growing young reader base (15-25 yrs) of 350 million, the readership in India is expected to continue growing.

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