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ItalyKey Indicators Values Sources,commentsBook market size (p+e,at consumer prices)Titles published peryear (new andsuccessive editions)New titles per 1 millioninhabitantseBook titles (availablefrom publishers)Key market parameters€3,072 million Publishers Association63,800 Publishers Association104960,589 March 2013 (up from31,416 in March 2012;Informazioni Editorialiand PublishersAssociation AIE)Fixed book price, yet withpossibilities for discountson print books of around15 %, notably in PRcampaigns, newlyintroduced in 2012. VAT is4 % on printed books,against 20% on ebooks.Earlier developmentsebook sales in Italy had shown strong growth since early2012, but from very modest beginnings, to €12.6 million,or a market share of 0.9% in trade by fall 2012 (announcementby AIE at the Frankfurt Book Fair, quoted in The Bookseller,October 11, 2012).Yet the update reflected significant growth of 740% from2011, when the Italian Publishers Association had estimatedthe ebook market at €3.7 million at cover prices, or0.2% of the overall book market (Giornale delle libreria,March 3, 2012). At some trade publishers, revenue fromebooks accounts for up to 2% (information provided byGeMS for this report.)The low overall penetration may hide complex dynamicsin the Italian marketplace.The European financial crisis put the book market undersevere pressure. Recent years have been characterized bysignificant changes in the performance of the largest publishinggroups. The Mondadori group maintained its leadingposition, but RCS saw its presence diminishing, includingthe model of part-time works—distributing books togetherwith popular magazines at kiosks—diminishing,and even affecting its strongly branded French arm, Flammarion(to Gallimard in 2012). The Grupo MauriSpagnol,rebranded as GeMS a few years ago, expanded its reach.Both Mondadori and GeMS spearheaded digital developments,each by setting up distribution platforms: Mondadorifor its own purposes and GeMS by forming a consortium(eDigita) with Flammarion and Feltrinelli.The catalog of available titles was expanded significantlyto over 30,000 by mid 2012. Almost 20,000 were availableas of the end of 2011, up from 1,600 by the end of 2010.eBook sales, even though they cannot compensate for decliningprint revenue, are expected to rise significantly, asis the penetration of reading devices. According to theItalian publishers’ association AIE, as of the end of 2011,Italy has seen an installed base of 533,000 ereaders and858,000 tablets (Editoria Italiana 2012, fact sheet, madeavailable for this report by AIE).In terms of reading devices, Italian readers greatly prefertablet computers over dedicated ereaders, which may addmomentum to ebook evolution, as all major players—notably,the international market leaders such as Amazon,Apple, and Google, as well as others—roll out new, cheaperdevices. Recent years also included a boom in online bookshops(with sales increasing by 24.5%). In 2011, online salesaccounted for 9.7% of the total book trade.All of the major publishing houses have invested in theirebook catalogs. As of the end of 2011, Mondadori, with anestimated catalog of 2,900 titles, had the largest ebookcatalog, followed by RCS/Rizzoli (2,337 titles), GeMS (1,274titles), and Feltrinelli (1,048 titles) (Informazioni Italiani).The average retail price for an ebook in 2012 is €11.07(compared to €11.18 in 2011) (AIE, provided for this report).A study by AIE for 2010 recorded an average ebook priceof €11.38, with a discount of 45% compared to hardcovereditions, implying an overall decrease in the average retailprice for ebooks. The VAT on ebooks was raised from 20%to 21% in 2012, compared to 4% for printed books, whichreduced the revenue of ebooks versus printed editions.The more broadly defined digital publishing market, notablyincluding revenue from databases and various sourcesof Internet-based sales, accounted for revenues of€150 million in 2011 (up from €125.6 million in 2010), withdatabase sales and related services increasing significantly(AIE).40 The Global eBook Report