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EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014After seeing a rather symbolic growth for all of 2013 of 0.1percent, and a declining market for the three previousyears, 2014 has had a bumpy start again, with a cumulatedloss of 2.8 percent for January and February.Trade paperback even went down by 9.2 percent, and fictionby 9.3 percent in early 2014, reflecting at least partiallythe significant gains of ebooks in late 2013, even as noebook data for that year are so far available. (Various reportsin buchreport and boersenblatt BranchenmonitorMarch 2014, based on data from media control GfK.)By mid-January however, one of the largest players on theGerman book market, the retailer and publisher Weltbild(www.weltbild.de filed for bankruptcy, due to a poor performancenotably in the second half of 2013. (buchreport,10 January 2014), and the news was widely understoodas a watershed for the German book sector in itsentirety. (See below fur a summary on the Weltbild crisis).The ebook segment has grown very dynamically throughout2013, as had been expected. Estimated at a markedshare of around 10 percent in trade titles in Germany, andsimilarly in Austria and in Switzerland, ebooks account forup to 14 percent of revenues for some publishers like BasteiLübbe, or even 17 percent at independent Berlin basedAufbau. And growth is expected to continue for the timebeing, hence following a trend very similar to that seen inthe US and the UK in earlier developments. (Interviews forthis report; Bastei Lübbe: buchreport; Aufbau: Börsenblatt).But not all players could take advantage of the digital upwardstrend. Deutsche Telekom even decided to close itsown ebook and digital media shop. (Die Welt, 18 January2014) Thalia, Germany’s largest chain book store, decidedto take its digital distribution platform buch.de from thestock exchange, to adjust its strategy.Amazon meanwhile could expand its clout, by an increaseof 20.7 percent for revenues across all products in Germanyin 2013, to $ 10.5 billion, with books contributing an estimated1.7 to 2 billion Euros ($2.3 to 2.8 billion), so that theSeattle based giant owns roughly one quarter of the onlineretail business in Germany.(buchreport, 31 January 2014).Amazon is estimated to control around 43 to 45 percentof all ebook sales in Germany, followed by the Tolino alliancewith around 37 percent (which includes Weltbild asone partner - see below for details on the Tolino allianceand its gateway Pubbles), and Apple’s iBookstore with 15percent.In 2013, Amazon has pushed for its selfpublishing servicesin Germany, and in early 2014 launched the Prime serviceas well as its own publishing arm.A recent test of dedicated ereading devices by StiftungWarentest, Germany’s leading consumer organization,ranked Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite at the top, followedclosely by the Tolino Shine and Kobo Aura. (buchreport)Overall however, sales of ereaders are flattening, whiletablet computers are gaining massively, with one in everyfour Germans using such a device, which caters specificallyto those aged between 30 and 49 years. In all of 2013, anestimated total of 832,000 ereaders and 8 million tableshave been sold in Germany. (bitkom, quoted in buchreport,25 February 2014) Among young readers in agegroup 14 to 29, smartphones have gained market sharesignificantly in 2013, with 21 percent of ebook readers usingtheir phones on a daily basis to read. (bitkom, quotedin a press release of Börsenverein, 12 March 2014).The Weltbild crisis33 The Global eBook Report