Developments and Obstacles in Chinese eBook Market

The purpose of this study was to provide insights into the eBook market in China through case studies on eBook companies and a survey research with individual eBook users. The information from three companies, Beijing Superstar Electric Company, Beijing Founder APABI Technology Limited, and Beijing Sursen Electronic Technology Company Limited, showed that the B2B market has been developed due to the huge requirement from organization customers, universities libraries in particularly, and the B2C market is still immature. The information from interviews and relative data revealed that both Superstar and Sursen have serious copyright infringement which is an important problem impeding the further development of the eBook market. The questionnaire explored awareness, purchase, reading and other experiences of eBook end-users. Questions indicated that readers were attracted by the technical advantages including costless to copy, easy to transfer, searchable and easy to store, but did not want to pay for eBooks. Because the computers, especially desktop PCs, were the main device for reading and the CRT displays were massive used while there were few dedicated reading device in the market, many eBook end-users still preferred to read extended passages of text on papers rather than screens. Today the copyrights issue, user acceptance and the reading device are three significant obstacles for eBook industry in China.