With the e-reader market booming in China, multiple players are struggling for top position. From the global perspective, the Amazon Kindle is undoubtedly tops on the e-reader ranking list.

 

Forbes website places Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos on par with Gutenberg who brought typography into Europe in the 15th century, It is conceivable that what kindle has brought to people.

 

In the eyes of Jeff Bezos: “the books would be the last fortress of analog technology. The music and video have been digitalized for a very long time and short articles are also digitalized in the early days with the developing of network. However, there is no way out for long articles. Thus, the e-reader will be the final terminator.”

 

When the Kindle was released in November 2007, its future is not as perspective as many present domestic e-reader manufactures. Sales of e-reader in China have increased dramatically from 800,000 sets in 2009 to 3 million in 2010, which accounts for 20% of the global market and has become the largest market, according to a report from Display Search, a well-known research institution.

 

Comparing that with the development methods and strategy in China, the prospect is generally viewed infinitely bright, but the road has twists and turns.

 

The success of Amazon makes the situation for the competitor more difficult than someone said; its turnkey element is undoubtedly the powerful content. Sony has also published an e-reader called e-book; the reason that it does not make a huge wake is it only provides about 20,000 online books. To date, Amazon’s e-book library exceeds 300,000 titles; there is no competitor for Amazon yet.

 

The price of the latest Hanvon e-reader n618 is over 3,000 Yuan, with 1,600 pre-installed books, currently enabling the online downloading from the Hanvon library (www.hwebook.cn).

 

Before the deadline for acceptance of drafts, our reporter has learned from Hanvon that there are approximately 130,000 books in the Hanvon library and many are available without a downloading fee, while others have a charge of 2-10 Yuan. The price is much cheaper than that of a paperback edition; however, most consumers are not satisfied with only 10,000 books.

 

E-book content cannot avoid copyright issues. The copyright problem is a head-scratching dilemma in China. The success of Amazon lies in fact that it integrates the resource of book and increases the value of consumer purchases. The Amazon consumer can download e-books without any copyright problem at a price two or three times cheaper than a paperback edition. While people in China have been used to free downloads, rampant piracy will cause e-reader to follow the steps of the record industry, and the resource limitation and legal copyrights are the two “stumbling blocks” Chinese E-books will be confronted with.