From 2003 to 2008, the number of e-books traded in China increased by an annual average of 24 percent; the sales value by 27 percent. From 2002 to 2008, the number of e-books traded grew from less than 14 million copies to 49.5 million copies, rising more than threefold; the sales value of e-books grew from some 50 million to over 200 million yuan, rising more than fourfold.

In 2008, China had 79 million e-book readers, growing by a remarkable 34 percent from 2007. As a new reading trend, e-books make reading a fashionable recreation activity. As young people easily fall prey to such fashions, juveniles and people with lower educational attainment have become the major readers of e-books, and this group of readers is still growing rapidly.

Science and non-fiction books constitute a large part of the e-book market. From 2006 to 2008, however, the proportion of science and non-fiction books dropped from 57 percent to 52.5 percent. The proportion of non-fiction in particular dropped by 3 percentage points.

On the whole, best-selling e-books and paper books in 2008 were similar to those in 2007. Time travel, fantasy and health books remained the most popular among readers, and political themes also attracted public attention. At particular times, the Chinese book market was dominated by books on hot issues like the Olympics and the financial crisis, and popular figures like Barack Obama. In 2008 web fiction maintained its rapid pace of growth. More and more writers chose the Internet to release their works and a growing number of works of fiction were published on the web. While the market share of specialty e-books dropped, literature and fiction grew significantly by 1.2 percentage points compared with 2007.

With regard to the age structure of e-book readers, from 2006 to 2008, the number of readers under the age of 18 had grown from 1.73 million (17.3 percent of the total) to 2.17 million (21.7 percent), and those under the age of 24 had grown from 4.29 million (42.9 percent) to 4.95 million (49.5 percent). With regard to the readers' educational background, from 2006 to 2008 the number of readers with lower educational and senior high school (or secondary specialized school) backgrounds grew from 3.86 million (37.7 percent) to 4.1 million (41 percent), and those with polytechnic or lower educational background grew from 6.95 million (68.6 percent) to 7.31 million (73.1 percent).

According to China Book Business Report, another important feature to be noticed in 2008 was the significant growth of Chinese mobile phone users. In 2008, mobile phone prices and fees dropped further in China. Big-screen phones and smart phones came into extensive use. The performance, function, Internet connection speed and storage capacity of mobile phones all improved significantly. In this situation, more and more people began to use mobile phones to read e-books. In 2008, about 6.3 percent of e-book readers were using mobile phones, while in 2006 and 2007, the proportion was 2.7 percent and 5.9 percent respectively.

The rise of mobile phone readers has led to a dramatic growth of e-book sales: From 2002 to 2008, the revenues generated by mobile phone e-book readers grew from less than 200,000 yuan to 30.3 million yuan, showing a 150-fold increase. In 2008, revenues generated by mobile phone e-book readers saw the largest growth rate, up by a factor of nearly five against the 6.5 million yuan in 2007.

Publishing on the Internet is convenient, cheap and fast. Besides, web-published books can also be issued in paper form. As a result, an increasing number of writers, especially new writers, are inclined to release their works online. Another reason for the growth of e-books was the increase in the volume of Chinese netizens. Although the growth rate of e-book readers was relatively lower than that of netizens, the total number of e-book readers still managed to grow to 79 million in 2008. In 2009, the number of e-book readers is expected to reach 83 million. According to estimates, about 1.17 million copies of e-books will be published online in 2009 – 1.09 million copies had already been published in 2008.

As China is making greater efforts to protect e-book copyright, crack down on piracy, and make readers pay for e-books, e-book sales will see further rapid development in coming years. From 2006 to 2008, the annual sales revenue of e-books was 30 million yuan, 36 million yuan and 69 million yuan respectively. This indicates that the market is maturing, and it is estimated that sales revenues of e-books will hit 91 million yuan in 2009.

(China.org.cn April 23, 2009)