33 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections As in most other European markets, a VAT of 6 per- cent is an advantage for printed books versus ebooks (taxed at a VAT of 19 percent, which will be rised to 21 percent by October 2012 source: Boekblad). Austria The case of Austria is a good example of a relatively small market neighboring a much larger territory and a market of the same language. With a population of about 8 million, Austria is roughly 10 percent the size of Germany in all major relevant respects for this study and shares both the vernacular and, largely, the current cultural and media framework of its dominating neighbor. Both countries are members of the European Union and the euro zone. Yet, with regard to printed books, books from German publishers already reign supreme in Austrian book shops, namely the chain stores as well as the online platforms of Amazon, Thalia, and Weltbild, serving the Austrian market from headquarters in Germany. Amazon also serves Austria from its German Kindle store, which opened a localized version in April 2011. Although local Austrian bestselling lists show, as would be expected, signi cant di erences from locally branded authors (e.g., local celebrities as well as local literary talent), the overall pattern and a share of roughly two-thirds of those charts are very similar to those in Germany (for details, see Diversity Report 2010). On the other hand, local Austrian publishers have always confronted substantial hurdles to bringing their books to retailers, to media, and hence to consumers in Querido and retailers and wholesalers Boekhuis and Luisterhuis, as well as ePagine itself and the British Gardners Books. Several more platforms have been launched to sell, stream, and lend ebooks, including Yindo and ebook.nl. Reading Devices In the Netherlands, iRex Technologies, a spino of Philips, introduced ereaders at the end of 2008 and reported sales of just over 4,000 units by the end of 2009. Sales rose to 50,000 ereaders by midyear 2010, but this was not enough to prevent iRex from ling for bank- ruptcy protection in June 2010. Several other ereader manufacturers have led for bankruptcy protection as well, including the manufac- turer of the Cool-er ereader and the European division of Foxit. In the meantime, a number of ereaders are available that have the capability to integrate with online stores. For example, bol.com o ers readers with Wi-Fi capabili- ties, among them the Sony eReader and the BeBook Neo, which was developed in the Netherlands. Pricing In the Netherlands, as in Germany, bookstores must use the price de ned by the publisher because of xed book price arrangements. The xed book price arrangement in Germany is not subject to any time restriction, whereas the corresponding arrangement in the Netherlands is applicable for only the rst year after the publication of printed and digital books. Austria Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €792 m Publishers Association Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 8,505 Publishers Association New titles per 1 m inhabitants 1,028