Kindle well situated to lead e-reading revolution

By Sun Peilin Source:Global Times Published: 2012-12-17 23:15:10

US e-commerce titan Amazon.com Inc launched a trial version of its Kindle Store on its Chinese website last week, allowing Chinese shoppers to download the company's Kindle software as well as Kindle-format e-books. Yet, so far the company has still not been cleared to sell its popular Kindle reading devices in the country.

Obviously, after the stunning success of the company's e-book and device business in the West, Amazon is eager to test the waters in the Chinese mainland market. However, whether Amazon.cn's Kindle Store is illegal or not is still a question that remains unsolved, since the General Administration of Press and Publication hasn't officially approved the company's e-reading operations in the country due to concerns about the inflow of foreign content into the domestic media sector.

Yet, allowing Amazon to tap the Chinese market with its well-developed Kindle-branded technology could be just the thing needed to help the commercial potential of the country's e-reading industry reach critical mass.

In China, there is currently no shortage of homegrown online platforms offering digitized books and magazines to Internet users. Local shoppers are also not suffering from a lack of options when it comes to e-readers - most electronics retailers in the country carry a wide selection of locally-branded handheld reading devices designed to read documents in various formats.

Yet, given the fact that Chinese readers have long been accustomed to accessing free online content, sales of e-books and other digitized reading material account for less than 1 percent of the domestic publishing industry's revenue. This has invariably discouraged publishing houses from exploring partnerships with online reading platforms and stopped book dealers from promoting online content.

In other words, e-reading is stuck in a vicious circle, where publishers withhold quality material and the online reading public is left with little content that's actually worth paying money for. This self-perpetuating loop has hobbled what could potentially be a major segment of China's electronic media sector and eroded domestic sales of e-reading devices.

By contrast though, the meteoric rise of Kindle has shown that there is a strong demand for e-reading devices and services if quality and content are competitive. Permitting Amazon to sell its Kindle devices in China could precipitate a flood of high-quality material, particularly foreign-language material, into the market.

More importantly, Kindle devices and Kindle-formatted publications will also help local consumers wake up to the fact that paid electronic content can indeed be more attractive than offline material or free content elsewhere on the Internet. Unless the public comes to this conclusion, e-reading as an industry will never flourish in China.

Based on an interview with Sun Peilin, a senior IT industry researcher from Analysys International, a Beijing-based consulting company. sunpeilin@analysys.com.cn



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