19 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections genre ction boom-and-bust cycles, the overall dynam- ics of the book market in Germany and in other European main markets are bound to accelerate drasti- cally in the years ahead. France The French publishers’ association SNE has started to systematically track the emergence of an ebook market on an annual basis. It has recorded ebook downloads worth €35 million for 2011 (against €17.9 million in 2010), hence doubling an albeit modest stream of rev- enue in an overall market of €4587 million (L’édition de livres en France, Repères Statistiques 2012, données 2011). Together with digital sales of physical supports worth another €21.5 million for 2011 (down from €35 million) this accounts for a market share of 1.2 percent. More importantly, the gure illustrates a shift from distribution by CD/DVD or ashdrive to Internet downloads. A study by GfK, released in September 2012 for- casted ebooks to grow by 80 percent in 2012, notably driven by sales of reading devices, with E Ink readers expected to sell 300,000 pieces in 2012 (against 145,000 in 2011), and tablets rising ever more strongly in popu- larity, with some 3 million devices expected to be sold in 2012, thereby doubling the threshold of 2011 (Livres Hebdo, May 3, 2012). And yet, the overall temperature among French book professionals with regard to ebooks is far below the boiling point as of mid 2012, an assessment which is well in line with Bowker’s “Global eBook Monitor” consumer survey (as quoted above in the chapter “Global Mapping Perspectives”). Hachette, by far the country’s leading publishing group and arguably the world’s largest trade publisher, considers the French ebook market as “embry- onic” (comment for this report), and returned ownership of its ebook distribution platform Numilog to its founder (press release, June 13, 2012). new wave of devices includes Amazon (with the Kindle eReader at €79, Kindle Touch at €129, and the Kindle Fire at €159), Kobo (Kobomini below €80, Kobo Touch Kobo ARC around €250), Google (Nexus 7 around €250), Sony (PRS-T2 (€ 129), Thalia (Cybook Odyssey at €119), and Weltbild (Reader 4 at €60). Barnes & Noble is also expected to introduce its Nook. Analysis As of fall 2012, the paradox for ebooks in Germany prevails: the penetration of reading devices—both dedicated gadgets and multifunctional tablets—has progressed at a remarkable pace, and the release of new titles, notably in ction, as ebooks is becoming the normal publishing routine. Retail prices for ebooks are close to those of hardcover editions, and the debate on copyright, piracy, and the cultural speci cities of the printed book make digital books appear as a still often dubious medium for accessing high culture and literary reading. Yet readers who adopt new generations of mobile devices enthusiastically in a market that o ers a growing number of titles of all kinds and standards at much lower prices than seasonal bestselling books have gained signi cant momentum throughout 2012. This development has not been well documented by publicly available statistics, yet it is reported con dently o the record by various voices in the industry—notably distrib- utors, who are of course in a position to reliably take the temperature of such market developments. In this perspective, earlier projections that antici- pated ebooks accounting for a double-digit share in the book market by 2015—three years into the future— seem ever more plausible. For the last quarter of 2012, a new wave of devices is expected to have substantial success with consumers, which almost inevitably will entail another surge of ebook purchases after the year- end holidays. But perhaps more importantly, with a continuing shift from traditional book retail to online platforms, even for printed book purchases, and with a small number of mega bestsellers and rapidly changing
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