Will it be this year’s premium priced Christmas present? Probably one of them at least. Yes, finally the Amazon Kindle, long awaited amongst gadget lovers and book worms alike, will touch down on the shores of Britain later in the year, it is reported.

Mobile, an online mobile phone trade magazine, reported yesterday that Amazon is in the late stage, advanced negotiations with a mobile operator and manufacturer, Qualcomm. WiFi connectivity is thought to have been the biggest hurdle for an earlier UK launch after negotiations with big players such as Vodafone, Orange and 3 all broke down around 6 months ago.

The online retailer is busily working towards a launch in advance of the Christmas shopping period by also securing deals with news and magazine publishers, as well as a range of book publishers. If this launch goes ahead, Amazon will be in a good position to establish and defend against other talked about ebook reader launches plus the traction that the likes of Sony are enjoying. With Google and Apple both currently re-moulding the traditional book market, an Amazon Kindle launch will take publishing and reading on leaps and bounds if the launch is by any way as successful as it has been over the other side of the Atlantic.

Whilst one Amazon spokesman said “we have previously announced that we are looking to release the Kindle with our international cusomter. At the moment, we have no timeline” another sounded more upbeat, saying”there’s no reason we can’t do it. We have a billing arrangement already with customers, and have fantastic relationships with the hardware community”.

In other major European countries, the big mobile operators have gone ahead with their own ebook readers. Vodafone has launched one in Germany whilst France will soon see Orange launch a digital book reader soon. Details of Amazon’s mobile connectivity plans are still unknown but we’ll keep a close eye out and report as and when we know.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, has revolutionised the publishing world already with some reports claiming that 26% of book sales in North America, since November 2007, were of the ebook kind.

One things for sure. This launch is exciting for the whole of the UK ebook reader market. Whether Amazon Kindle will clean up, or simply be the spark plug for the whole ebook world, it is a good thing. How the other manufacturers will repond, especially Sony, will be interesting to witness. Thinkeink has featured some of the new generation ebook readers from Samsung and Fujitsu, to name a few. We’d like to see these gearing up quicker for UK launches sometime in the nearer future now. Fingers crossed and get ready for an exciting 2010 in the ebook reader world.