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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)By Veronika LicherThe ambitious plan ahead—combiningcontent 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 publishinginitiatives, the telecom organizations will help propelthe digitization process of traditional publishing aswell.Status of the ebook sectorIn 2011, China’s epublishing market (or digital publishingoperating income, which includes not only books but alldigital content industries) grew by 31 percent to total revenuesof ¥137.8 billion (China Daily, August 29, 2012;GAPP’s “2011 Nationwide News and Publication IndustryAnalysis Report,” July 7, 2012).66 The Global eBook Report