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Arabia, the situation improves dramatically. For instance,in the United Arab Emirates, illiteracy has fallen from 75percent only four decades ago to 7.5 percent today (JenThomas: “UAE cruises from illiterate to well-read in 40years.” The National, August 27, 2012).Some 500,000 printed book titles are available in Arabic,with about 15,000 new titles and 10,000 re-editions peryear, according to estimates. 3 These are modest numberscompared to the 90,000 new titles and re-editions in Germanyalone, with a population of about 82 million. Thefoundations of the Arab book market are ever more strained,as small- and medium-sized publishing houses prevail,with strictly limited access to capital, as well as a high costfor a largely unreliable distribution system in most Arabcountries, and a very serious impact from piracy on salesin most markets. Any successful new book is pirated, onpaper or digitally, within days of its release. Among the welleducated, Arabic books are furthermore in direct competitionwith content in the English language—books, butalso all other media and formats—so that reading andlearning in English (or in French for the Maghreb) has becomea central feature.In 1999, Neel WaFurat was established as the first platformfor purchasing Arabic books online. Based in Lebanon, itserves the domestic market as well as customers in neighboringcountries, plus Egypt, the Gulf, and Saudi Arabia(which, with a population of 28 million, is the largest singleArab market). Recently, Neel WaFurat added a dedicatedsite for digital books, iKitab, distributing some 3,000Arabic-language titles as ebooks in EPUB format; Neel Wa-Furat also added a site for digital magazines, iMaghaleh,hosting about 100 magazines from all over the Arab world.These platforms are available for Apple’s iPad as well as forthe Android platform. An iKitab Cloud service waslaunched in beta version in the first half of 2012.Other online stores for books in Arabic include Mizado, oneof the leading web stores in the Middle East, covering awide range of products, including electronics, furniture,and home appliances, as well as books, for delivery to thecustomer’s home. The catalog of Arabic books is limited toabout 250 titles. Aido is an online store, founded in 2008,specializing in various media and gifts, with a limited offeringin books, most of which are in English. DoBazar is arecently launched online store with a Bangladeshi background,specializing in gifts, but aiming to add books, includingtitles in Hindi, to their product list.The move from using the Internet for the distribution ofphysical goods to distributing digital material on mobiledevices is confronting a number of challenges that arespecific to the Arab context.First of all, digitizing Arabic writing is a challenge, as representingArabic typography properly on reading devicescomes with substantial technical difficulties—a problemof both practical and symbolic impact in a cultural contextthat esteems calligraphy as being a particularly importantaspect in books. As a result, Arabic is currently not supportedfor ebooks on several of the internationally leadingplatforms, like the Apple iBookstore.This makes it not only difficult to produce and distributeArabic ebooks—It tends to discriminate books against allother media and content that are available to consumerson their mobile devices instantly, over popular servicessuch as the iTunes store.The most ambitious initiative aiming at digital content isprobably Rufoof. Founded in 2010, Rufoof is a Dubai-basedebook portal offering publishers a complete line of servicesfrom digital conversion to distribution. It currentlyserves as a distributor for 20 publishers and has serviceagreements with another 30, with 5,000 titles, mostly inArabic, currently in its inventory. In a strategic move, Rufoofis preparing to build an overarching directory for theArab book industry, aiming at including title-based informationas well as information on publishers and the availabilityof any listed title at as many bookstores and on asmany sales platforms as possible. Rufoof focuses primarilyon mobile devices, and its application is available fromApple’s App Store (for which Rufoof could gain the statusof an “approved supplier”). Additional apps for Androidand Windows are forthcoming. According to its businessmodel, Rufoof does not charge for digital conversion services,but splits revenues with publishers 50/50, after suggestinga retail price for ebooks at a discount of 30 to 50percent off a print title’s cover price. In upcoming developments,Rufoof aims to branch out into educational publishingas well, taking advantage of recent public announcementswith regard to the UAE government’s promotionand support of elearning (see, for instance, Sheik3. Data in this chapter are, if not indicated otherwise, taken from the study “Publishing in the United Arab Emirates,” by Rüdiger Wischenbart andNasser Jarrous, released in September 2012.83 The Global eBook Report