41 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections the late 1990s, and Kobo has chosen it to be their local partner as of September 2012. These three companies are still the largest players in the Brazilian ebook arena. Since September 2011, Copia has also had a presence through a partnership with Submarino, the largest Brazilian e-retailer, but it has no visible traction to date. Grupo Abril—one of the largest media companies in Brazil, with a huge presence in magazine publishing, K–12 book publishing, and cable TV—also opened its ebookstore, Iba, in the rst half of 2012. So far, it has had only limited impact on the market. Livraria Saraiva and Livraria Cultura together account for probably 80 per- cent of digital sales. But the real question screaming at the Brazilian market today is not so much which domestic company is bigger or has the larger market share, but what will happen to them all once the global Big Five—Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and Google—start their operations in the country. A closer look at those giants’ ventures into the largest Latin American book market may illustrate how business perspectives intermingle with cultural perceptions. Kobo Following its strategy tested in Europe, this Canadian company’s business model for Brazil is to partner with a We can get a clearer idea of the situation in the developing Brazilian ebook market by looking at a few details. Based on sales numbers that bookstores provide to PublishNews, the total sales for their top ten digital titles is about 5 percent of the total for their top ten print titles. This is an average for August 2012 and considers only two or three Brazilian retailers. Still, for every 20 top-ten books they sell, they sell 1 top-ten digital book. Of course this doesn’t mean that the whole market is selling 5 percent digital most local retailers don’t have ebookstores and may not even care about having digital lists. It also doesn’t mean that, on average, the digital- and-print retailers are selling 5 percent digital along their full catalogs. It would also likely be a huge overestimate to apply the 5 percent to mediumsellers and longsellers, especially considering current limitations of the Brazilian digital catalog. The Digital Players in Brazil The rst Brazilian ebookstore, Gato Sabido, launched in December 2009. Early 2010 brought ebookstore open- ings for the largest bookselling chain in the country, Livraria Saraiva, and for an important medium-size chain, Livraria Cultura, which has 11 megastores throughout the country and very strong e-commerce. Livraria Cultura pioneered in selling books online in Brazil during Brazil Key indicators Values Source, comments Book market size (p+e, at consumer prices) US $2,576 m (publishers’ revenues) PublishNews Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 58,192 PublishNews New titles per 1 m inhabitants 107 Ebook titles (available from publishers) 11,000 Key market parameters