29 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections growth, largely driven by a few particularly strong best- sellers, yet this growth came after a weak rst half of the year and after four years of continuously dropping sales—a trend not seen since the 1970s, according to the Swedish Publishers Association (quoted in Svensk Bokhandel, September 2011, and updated in September 2012). In Sweden, as in the other Nordic countries, the ebook market is only emerging. eBook sales have hardly any current market share, and their growth has so far been challenged by uncertainty about most key param- eters, including pricing and availability as well as VAT of 25 percent for ebooks versus printed editions selling with a VAT of only 6 percent. The gap in ebook develop- ment between Sweden and the English-language mar- ket is even more remarkable, given Sweden’s signi cantly high Internet penetration and the a nity of Swedish consumers for digital o ers. One important factor may be the absence from the Swedish market of direct pressure from major global players, notably Amazon at this point, no concrete dates have been announced for the advent of global platforms there. Local online shops prevail instead, with Adlibris as the market leader, which is owned by the country’s outcasts such as young hackers or grumpy old police o cers being the sole and last resort of law and order. As world-class industrial brands struggle for survival (Nokia) or are passed on to Chinese ownership, one Swedish publishing house—Bonnier—set out to become Germany’s third-largest publisher, and has so far success- fully imposed its online platforms on the domestic market with a strong and almost paramount presence. Sweden does not yet have an Amazon or Kindle shop. Despite being a nation of early adopters in new digital technologies—text messages (SMS), Skype, and Spotify were invented in Scandinavia, and Sweden has been an early market for those innovations—ebooks are still in their very early days there. Yet according to many indica- tors, in 2012 ebooks are showing strong growth in Sweden, but again, in a unique way: libraries, not book- sellers, are at the forefront of the trend, as they account for about 85 percent of the ebook market today, accord- ing to identical statements provided for this report by the trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel and the leading Scandinavian ebook distribution platform, elib. The Swedish (print) book market has come under pressure, with an estimated decrease of 5 percent in the rst half of 2012 versus 2011. Overall, 2011 saw 5 percent Sweden Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) Publishers’ net revenues: ca. €700 m 2011, estimate SEK2579 million (or €340 million of publishers’ net sales (Publishers Association) Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 4,010 Publishers Association New titles per 1 m inhabitants 463 Ebook titles (available from publishers) 4,800 Market share of ebooks Ebooks only starting on the market Key market parameters Most ebook titles without DRM no price regulation 6% VAT for printed books 25% for ebooks