SAN FRANCISCO - Sony Corp., Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, plans to introduce a line of upgraded digital book readers in the United States as early as next month to challenge Kindle maker Amazon.comInc. The current Sony Reader, now priced from $180 to $300, will probably be offered with improvements in August, Phil Lubell, a Sony vice president, said Wednesday in an interview in San Francisco.
The new products will be introduced to US consumers before Sony’s first tablet computer models, which are scheduled to go on sale later this year. The Tokyo company, whose readers trail the Kindle and Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook, plans to continue its push to sell dedicated digital readers because they are cheaper than tablets, Lubell said.
