also has the fourth largest installed base of smartphonesin the world, and according to Nielsen, over 90% of thesmartphones sold at retail in the first half of 2013 wereAndroids. It is fair to say that many of those initial Googlesales are people experimenting with ebooks and testingthe store. Google actually has a very low customer returnrate, and most purchases up to now have been made byfirst-time customers. While Amazon sells more backlist titlesthan any other retailer in Brazil, Google Play’s frontstore accounts for around 80% of the sales, making it a verybestseller-focused ebookstore.IBA IBA was launched in March 2012 by Grupo Abril, oneof the largest media companies in Brazil, with a huge presencein magazine publishing, K–12 book publishing, andcable TV. It presents a very solid platform, with a proprietaryDRM control, so the readers do not need an Adobe ID.The purchases are made on the website, and the readingis done in apps for iOS, Android, and PC. It is greatly focusedon magazines and newspapers, perhaps even more thanon ebooks. It has not gained much traction in the ebookmarket so far.Kobo Following its strategy tested in Europe, Kobo’s businessmodel for Brazil was to partner with a strong localretailer, and they found one in Livraria Cultura, one of themost important Brazilian booksellers, with 16 storesaround the country. Livraria Cultura also has a very strongecommerce background since it pioneered selling booksonline in Brazil during the late 1990s. Kobo took advantageof the existing Livraria Cultura ebookstore—that theymerged into their platform—allowing them to save severalmonths in contract negotiations and to launch in December2012. Kobo offers Touch, Mini, Glo, and Aura devicesin the Brazilian market, so far always sold throughLivraria Cultura. The level of exclusivity in the partnershipdeal has not been disclosed, but Kobo has been makingan effort to have all contracts now signed directly withpublishers and distributors. Kobo keeps a local team inBrazil.Saraiva Livrarias Saraiva is the largest Brazilian bookstorechain, with over 100 stores around the country. Along withthe publishing and educational divisions, they are part ofa larger public company that ranks among the top threepublishing groups in Brazil. They also have a strong onlinepresence in the book market with a well-known ecommerceplatform that also sells electronics, computers, andtelecom products. Their ebookstore was launched in early2010. Their platform is non-proprietary, based on BlueFiretechnology and on Adobe’s DRM. They do not offer a devicebut have iOS, Android, and PC apps. The main challengesthat Saraiva faces today are global competitors andthe need to find a way to better use its brick-and-mortarpresence and brand to increase their ebook sales.Submarino Submarino could be called the Brazilian Amazon.It is a large Brazilian e-retailer that sells everythingfrom books to wine, cosmetics, and perfumes. They startedan ebookstore in a partnership with Gato Sabido, but inSeptember 2011, they canceled the deal and invested in anew partnership with New-York-based The Copia. Theyhave not, however, shown any relevant traction in themarket until now.Brazil: Conclusion There are other digital initiatives inBrazil. In higher education, for instance, Estácio de Sá, aprivate university of 260,000 students, is already offeringdigital textbooks to its students. Telecom companies suchas Vivo, Claro, and Oi, too, are starting to offer ebooks forweekly fees to their mobile clients, and several magazinesare going digital.The growth of tablet sales in Brazil is probably going to bea key element for the development of the ebook marketin the country. According to IDC, 5.9 million tablets will besold in Brazil in 2013, and Nielsen has reported that retailsales of tablets increased 400% in the first semester of 2013compared to the same period in 2012. Even more impressiveis the fact that 94.9% of the tablets sold in at retail inthe first semester of 2013 were Androids. On the smartphonefront, Brazil is also a huge market. According to astudy by Morgan Stanley, released on May 12, Brazil had70 million smartphones, making it the fourth country inthe world in the number of such devices. IDC expects 28million smartphones to be sold in Brazil in 2013.The tipping point for the ebook market was December 5,2012, when Amazon, Google and Kobo arrived. This was agame-changer, and according to market trends, 2013 willbe the first year of digital growth in Brazil—just in time forBrazil to host soccer’s FIFA World Cup in 2014, when thedigital market will tend to grow even more, helped by thebooming market for tablets and smartphones.ChinaBy Veronika Licher Update fall 2013In 2013, several initiatives occured that together will probablyreshape the scope and impact of ebooks - and morebroadly, of the digital dissemination of copyrighted content- in China, as the world’s most populous country has67 The Global eBook Report
“overtaken America to become the world’s biggest e-commerce market, in terms of sales.” (The Economist, 21September 2013). In 2012, the Chinese mobile Interet reportedlyaccounted for RMB 159 billion of sales (ca. $26Billion, according to China Internet Watch; the report includesan overview of the most popular ereading devicesand apps, and their estimated market share.)With a mobile phone user base of 1.1 billion by mid 2013(BGR blog, 26 June 2013), and a strong increase in thepenetration of smart phones, mobile platforms are the keyfor the dissemination of copyrighted content, includingebooks, as its “reading population is gradually shifting online.”(Quoted from a strategy paper issued by the technologyompany Huawei, “Mobile reading as a strategic focus”)Accordingly, many observers see mobile phone operators,led by the giant China Mobile in a unique position to developplatforms that bring notably young users in China’shuge urban agglomerations the content they are lookingfor, and ebooks are an integral part of it. Respective plansgo back to 2010, when China Mobile already had announcedplans to “build China’s biggest ebookstore”.(Publishing Perspectives, 16 May 2012), but it took until2013, and a broader upswing for mobile commerce to pickup speed. The stakes are high, given the strong competitionfrom domestic giants in e-commerce, so that “even acompany valued at $126 billion can’t mess with Jack Ma’shomegrown powerhouse Alibaba Group Holding, whichowns Taobao Marketplace and Tmall“, as Bloomberg summarizedthe situation at Amazon’s launch. By mid-2013,the most popular platforms for ebook downloads are estimatedto be China Mobile and Cina Unicom, followed byAmazon and 360. (Cheng Sanguo, BookDao, for this report)In June 2013, Amazon has entered the Chinese market ina “long-overdue release of the Kindle" (Bloomberg, 10 June2013) by launching a dedicated Chinese platform, andpromoting notably its tablet, the Fire, among Chinesereaders. The Kindle Paperwhite was prized at $138, the FireHD starting at $244.In order to strengthen its on position with regard toebooks, the leading domestic Chinese online platform forbooks, Dangdang, has started a campaign in spring 2013,offering their entire digital catalogue for free. (The DigitalReader, 22 April 2013)Also in 2013, and after a several years long struggle ofverlicensing details, Apple’s iPhone was cleared to run on ChinaMobile’s networks. (WSJ 11 September 2013)Bt also in less grandiose dimensions, China is build an infrastructureto be a part, and a competitor, in the globalexchange of digital content, including books and journals.For the latter, the import and export arm of China PublishingGroup, CNIEPC, has launched a new platform for accessingthe international e-journal segmentat the BeijingInternational Book Fair in Auust 2013. (Teleread, 30 August2013)In the meantime, another strong and innovative player inChina’s efforts to bringing books and reading online, Cloudary- formerly branded as Shanda - seems to have cutdown on its plans for international expansion, by closingthe respective departments altogether. (Information receivedfor this report) Shanda Cloudary has also withdawnits initial plan for an IPO in 2013, pending since 2012, yetclosed a round of direct funding. (Technode, 15 Julay 2013)Developments prior to 2013 The ambitious plan ahead—combining content and capital (2012)The “12th Five-Year Development Plan for the Press andPublication Industry” that China released in 2011 approved,among other things, 23 projects in support of digitalpublishing or technological innovation. The creationof five new “national digital publishing bases” in 2011made for a total of nine such enterprises, with a combinedrevenue of ¥42 billion, or 30.5 percent of total Chinese/global revenue for digital publishing in 2011. Even at theSeptember 2012 exchange rate of about ¥6.28 to the USdollar, this is a considerable amount (Liu Binjie at BeijingInternational Publishing Forum [BIPF], August 28, 2012).As Liu Binjie, minister of the General Administration ofPress and Publication (GAPP) and of the National CopyrightAdministration, pointed out at the Beijing InternationalPublishing Forum held on August 28, 2012, the governmentshows great interest in encouraging (and guiding)the development of digital publishing in China. Fouradministrative decisions support the effort. First, the governmentwill give a significant percentage of special fundingfor cultural development to digital publishing projects.Second, strategic investors and financial capital will be encouragedto focus on cultural industry. GAPP has signedstrategic cooperation agreements with several importantChinese banks to provide loans (up to several hundred billionyuan, according to Liu) to enterprises in digital publication.Also, technology and publishing operations will beurged to forge closer ties. Thus, GAPP has signed agreementswith several companies in the communications sector,including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom.To hasten the growth of industrial and digital pub-The Global eBook Report 68
- Page 2:
ContentsAbout the Global eBook Repo
- Page 5 and 6:
• The Bookseller (United Kingdom)
- Page 7 and 8:
Executive SummaryThis report provid
- Page 9 and 10:
The ambitions, and thelimitations o
- Page 11 and 12:
ending requests by email and face t
- Page 13 and 14:
Chris Kenneally, Copyright Clearanc
- Page 15:
A Global Industry, and Many Local P
- Page 18 and 19:
transformation longer than other se
- Page 20 and 21: The Bookish Elites: Market size & n
- Page 22 and 23: Book markets evolution in selected
- Page 24 and 25: Market share of ebooks (in various
- Page 26 and 27: English Language eBookMarketsThe fo
- Page 28 and 29: United States (2010-2011 Book Marke
- Page 30 and 31: Ebooks accounted in 2013 for one in
- Page 32 and 33: stores, and 700 Argo stores, as wel
- Page 34 and 35: Metadata is the key to online sales
- Page 36 and 37: EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014Afte
- Page 38 and 39: GermanyKey Indicators Values Source
- Page 40 and 41: Ebooks evolve in a complex and chal
- Page 42 and 43: actively seeking Google’s coopera
- Page 44 and 45: SpainKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 46 and 47: early days there. Yet according to
- Page 48 and 49: According to the Danish book trade
- Page 50 and 51: and Amazon is as well. Barnes & Nob
- Page 52 and 53: PolandKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 54 and 55: The emerging role of ebooks in Cent
- Page 56 and 57: Nemokamospdfknygos (Aida Dubkeviči
- Page 58 and 59: play a role for starting to change
- Page 60 and 61: 57 The Global eBook Report
- Page 62 and 63: RussiaKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 64 and 65: OzonOzon is a general retailer sell
- Page 66 and 67: tribute the PDFs they had received
- Page 68 and 69: a company wants—and it should—t
- Page 72 and 73: ChinaKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 74 and 75: lion in 2008 to ¥60 million in 201
- Page 76 and 77: The National Book Trust (NBT), the
- Page 78 and 79: tion. Of these, 73% youth are liter
- Page 80 and 81: Wiley were among the first. Much of
- Page 82 and 83: launched with 47 titles, available
- Page 84 and 85: Ebook publishers are faced with the
- Page 86 and 87: Arabia, the situation improves dram
- Page 88 and 89: Contributed articleCopyright Cleara
- Page 90 and 91: Forces Shaping the eBook MarketsA c
- Page 92 and 93: In the current battle over emerging
- Page 94 and 95: Paradoxically, the global expansion
- Page 96 and 97: The Expansion of GlobalPlatformsPub
- Page 98 and 99: Interestingly, all Amazon figures b
- Page 100 and 101: $1.8 billion”, equalling some 8%
- Page 102 and 103: leader in the digital industry thro
- Page 104 and 105: By January 2013, Kobo claimed to ow
- Page 106 and 107: aggressively at €0.99 or €2.99,
- Page 108 and 109: edition of the same titles is still
- Page 110 and 111: Self-publishingUpdate spring 2014In
- Page 112 and 113: continental Europe have launched th
- Page 114 and 115: Goodreads, launched by Otis Chandle
- Page 116 and 117: Regulatory frameworksThe litigation
- Page 118 and 119: Receptiveness for foreign(English)
- Page 120 and 121:
suffers not in spite of but because
- Page 122 and 123:
entific and professional publishing
- Page 124 and 125:
utors. Börsenverein’s own Librek
- Page 126 and 127:
sources and blogs promoting and poi
- Page 128 and 129:
In France, the independent literary
- Page 130 and 131:
eBook Yellow PagesThe eBook Yellow
- Page 132 and 133:
dotbooksEdiciones B, founded in Bar
- Page 134 and 135:
Neowood Éditions is a French digit
- Page 136 and 137:
those who would like to create thei
- Page 138 and 139:
about 60,000 ebooks. In November 20
- Page 140 and 141:
making the ebook creation and publi
- Page 142 and 143:
extended ranges of books and audio
- Page 144 and 145:
MyiLibrary is an econtent aggregati
- Page 146 and 147:
that publishes RNTS branded digital
- Page 148 and 149:
lishers and over 30 sales channels,
- Page 150 and 151:
Professional organizationsProfessio
- Page 152 and 153:
Advertising in the eBookYellow Page
- Page 155 and 156:
The acceleratedtransformation of th
- Page 157 and 158:
IndexSymbols100knygu, 13224Symbols,
- Page 159 and 160:
INscribe, 139Integral, 139iStoryTim