Samsung and Amazon partner for 'Kindle for Samsung' ebook service

South Korean electronics giant Samsung in a deal with Amazon has launched a custom-built ebook service, called 'Kindle for Samsung', for its Galaxy devices. The service will offer bestselling books, newspapers and magazines with over 500,000 titles exclusive to the Kindle Store.

Initially the 'Kindle for Samsung' service is exclusively for the Samsung Galaxy S5 users, but the app is available to download via Samsung Apps for Galaxy devices running Android 4.0 or higher. Samsung said that the store will launch across 90 countries within this month.

Also as a part of the service, Samsung and Amazon will launch Samsung Book Deals, which will be available to all customers using the service. It will provide 12 free ebooks a year to all Galaxy smartphones and tablet users.

"We are delighted to be able to deepen our long-standing relationship with Amazon and offer Kindle for Samsung as the perfect app for reading on a smart device. With this service we demonstrate our commitment to creating and broadening key content partnerships that deliver rich and personalized experiences for our customers," said Lee Epting, Vice President, Samsung's Media Solution Center Europe.

"We're thrilled that Samsung has chosen Kindle as their eBook provider. With Kindle for Samsung, people around the world will have instant access to the best digital bookstore and reading experience, including more than half a million titles that are only available from the Kindle Store, and innovative features like Whispersync, Time to Read and much more," said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Vice President, EU Kindle.

Previously in March, Samsung had launched a free music service for its Galaxy smartphone users, similar to services like Pandora, Spotify and Apple's iTunes. The service, dubbed "Milk Music", offers some 200 ad-free radio stations to US customers with Samsung Galaxy devices.

Milk Music is powered by the radio service Slacker. It has 200 genre-based and curated stations and over 13 million songs, and like other service will allow 6 song skips per hour per station.