Online retailer Flipkart announced on Friday that it will stop offering electronic books for download. Closing the service that it launched in 2012, the e-commerce website will migrate all libraries of its existing users to Canada-based e-books service Kobo from December 17. It said that India still does not have a market for e-books.

In an email to NDTV, a spokesperson for Flipkart said: “The Indian book market is overwhelmingly dominated by physical books, and this is a market that is growing at a fast clip. Flipkart will continue to be a leading player in the overall books market in India. In an overall strategy for books, Flipkart does not see the eBooks service as a strategic fit and hence the decision of transitioning the e-books service to Kobo.”

Users can continue to access the e-books app even after this transition, the company said. From December 17, the e-books section will host a link to enable users to transfer their libraries from the app to Kobo. The company has assured that books unavailable on Kobo will be refunded to users' Flipkart accounts.