Apple's iBookstore to expand to 18 new countries tonight at 'iPad mini' event

The Apple iPad mini event will be livestreamed on Apple TV in what’s a first for Apple, and now that we know that the focus of the event will be education, one of the last pieces of the puzzle falls in - Apple will expand its iBookstore to 18 new countries.

Apple will open its book store for tons of Latin American markets, so expect to hear also about some Spanish-language content. Here is the list of new countries the iBookstore is expected to arrive at:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

"The books aren't immediately available in the new areas," a publisher who saw the new markets appear in iTunes said. "iTunes Connect is showing their status as pending for contract reasons, although I'm quite certain they'll trigger to available during tomorrow's keynote. This is quite a big jump for iBooks."
Just yesterday we looked at the way Apple has the strongest entertainment ecosystem in all aspects except for books where Amazon is clearly in the lead. That is a pretty big move for Cupertino now, and it’s quickly catching up. Let’s wait to see if it gets official later on today.