China's publishing industry is sizzling with e-books and reading devices

After online shopping, internet-based finance, mobile payments and bicycle-sharing, the digital dimension in China is sweeping through the world of books.

The publishing industry has gone digital in a big way, spawning a market comprising 300 million users of mobile devices who read electronic books in China.

The market, which has two key sections - hardware (reading devices) and software (e-books) - reached about 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion; 1.5 billion euros; ￡1.4 billion) in sales last year, up by 25 percent year-on-year, according to a report by the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association.

A reader uses her phone to download an e-book in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province. Jia Minjie / For China Daily

According to the Shenzhen-based Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, a consulting agency, 3 million e-book reading devices were sold in 2011 in China. But the figure declined to 1.89 million in 2013, only to rebound later, with annual growth rate exceeding 15 percent in 2014.

In 2015, 2.26 million e-book readers were sold; the figure rose to 2.34 million last year.

What makes this trend striking is its divergence from the global pattern. Worldwide, sales of e-book readers peaked at 23.2 million units in 2011, but fell to 7.8 million units in 2015, according to market research company Statista.

The company estimates that sales were likely to have continued to decline to about 7.1 million units in 2016(the data for last year is yet to be released).

With nearly an 8 percent share of the global market, China now trails only North America, the largest market for e-book readers in 2016 with a 68 percent share, and Europe (an almost 14 percent share), according to market consultancy QYResearch.

A few big names

Just like in North America, where the e-book reader device market is dominated by manufacturers such as Amazon, Kobo and PocketBook (which account for a collective 75 percent of the market share), the e-reader market in China has a few big names.

Amazon, with its Kindle range of devices, is the common leader in both markets, but it is followed by iReader and newcomers such as e-commerce giant JD in China.

As the e-book reader pioneer, Amazon.com has created an ecosystem comprising users, digital versions of printed books, e-book stores online and e-book readers. Amazon says the China market is important for it.

Last month, it announced a strategic partnership with Migu Culture and Technology Group Co, a subsidiary of China Mobile Communications Corp, and also launched a feature-rich Kindle created exclusively for Chinese readers.

The device presents more than 460,000 Kindle e-books and over 400,000 online literature titles from Migu, one of the largest online literature platforms in China.

The made-for-China Kindle X Migu device retails for 658 yuan. "China has become the largest market in the world for Kindle and enjoys a very strong growth momentum," says Bruce Aitken, vice-president of Amazon China and general manager of Amazon Reading.

He says Chinese book lovers are increasingly switching to digital reading devices and are willing to pay for e-books. This makes Amazon bullish on the future prospects of the digital publishing industry in China.

It has already introduced its full range of Kindle e-book readers in China, with the entry-level device priced at 558 yuan.

Kindle has grown rapidly in the Chinese market. Compared with January 2013, it offers 18 times more e-book options in China.

Aitken says Kindle has been in China for just four years and is still in the initial stage of development.

"We hope our e-book devices possess all of the advantages of traditional books. We will make efforts in R&D to improve battery life and make Kindle devices lighter and thinner in the future. We'll retain the advantages of e-books. For example, users can easily access any e-book at any time."

Amazon has also launched premium devices to attract high-end Chinese customers. In April 2016, the 2,399-yuan Kindle Oasis, the lightest and thinnest one in the Kindle family, was introduced in China concurrently with other markets in the world.

Amazon is not the only company betting big on e-book readers in China. Beijing-based iReader Technology Co released its latest e-book reader, the iReader Light, in early September last year. The device weighs only 142 grams, and is priced at 658 yuan.

Cheng Xiangjun, CEO of iReader Technology, says more than 100 million people in 150 countries use the iReader to read e-books each month.

Online shopping giant JD.com Inc launched its JDRead last year. Priced at 769 yuan, the JDRead device can access about 300,000 e-books.

The hardware segment has grown and the software segment, or e-books/content, appears set to follow suit.

"We find Chinese users refer to the dictionary a lot. Especially their use of the English dictionary is higher than in any other countries, so we specifically designed a function of tips about new words, and provide English-to-Chinese/English definition automatically for Chinese readers," Aitken says.

Amazon, he adds, will launch more new functions over the next year.

Compared with printed books, the cost of e-books is very low. Some are free or cost just a few dollars.

For instance, the printed version of The Shortest History of Europe, one of the top five best-sellers in 2016, is 25 yuan, while its e-book version retails for only 2.99 yuan.

However, e-books account for only a small percentage of the whole publishing industry. Sales of printed books reached 62.4 billion yuan in 2015, while revenue from e-books was 10.8 billion yuan, or 15 percent of the total, according to a book retail market report.

That suggests the potential for growth is immense. So, to make more e-books available to device buyers, Amazon introduced the Kindle Unlimited e-book monthly subscription service in February last year in China.

The service costs 12 yuan a month and allows users to access and read more than 67,000 Chinese and foreign e-books on their devices.

Amazon has also forged partnerships with more than 660 publishers in China, such as CITIC Press Group, Commercial Press, China Machine Press, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and Changjiang Children's Press.

Range of content

There is more to the digital publishing industry in China than hardware and software.

Elaine Chang, vice-president of Amazon, says male users outnumber female users in China, and all of them are younger.

In this respect, the China market is different from the US market, in which 70 percent of users are female and older.

A report from the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association said the post-'70s generation loves historical biographies, while the post-'80s and post-'90s generation are willing to read romantic stories, and the post-2000 generation prefers modern metropolis stories.

Analysts say that whether digital book sales will see significant growth depends on the range of content offered in the market, not just the features of a device.

So, the emphasis should be as much on technology as nurturing more authors and original literature, they say.

Huang Guofeng, an analyst with Beijing-based consultancy Analysis, says, "China's digital book and e-reader market shows huge growth potential."

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(China Daily European Weekly 07/14/2017 page26)