E-books also known as Electronic books are more eco-friendly than printed books as they emit four times less greenhouse gases than printed books.
The e-book reader market touched $30 billion in 2020. North America has been the biggest E-book reader ecosystem across the world and is said to continue holding that position in the coming years but the Asia Pacific nations are the fastest growing markets in this segment. A report by The Association of American Publishers stated that the United States e-book sales revenue stood at $1.94 billion in 2019.
Amazon is said to be the leader in both print and electronic books segment with a market share above 65%. Several reports suggest that Amazon’s Kindle adds at least a million books every year.
CORONAVIRUS GROWTH
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed governments to impose movement restrictions and closed down across nations therefore distant learning has become the new norm.
Subscriptions for digital libraries and digital education have been seeing a fast paced rising trend because of these lockout measures. Several major acquisitions too happened which will only further bolster this sector. For example, Byju’s, an Indian Edtech startup, acquired an American digital platform for reading called EPIC. The company plans to make major investments to increase accessibility of such digital books to a wider audience.
E-books constituted over 20% of the global book sales as of the first few months in 2021. The beginning of 2021 United States alone saw revenues that jumped by a whopping 14.5% when compared to the pandemic year , total revenue stood over $360 million.
Canada reflected a record 25% of the total book purchases to be E-books and United Kingdom readers took to digital books on large scale as sales rose by a whopping 24% taking the value to $591 million.
Governments of several nations have also actively been trying to promote electronic books. For example, very recently the Greece government slashed value added tax (VAT) on E-books and Audio books by 18% on the recommendation of its Ministry of Culture.
THE FUTURE COMPREHENSION
The age of digital is here to stay, so it’s safe to say that digital books are the way of future learning and entertainment. This segment had been on the rise and the pandemic just gave it a leap of faith. Also to add, the benefit of convenience and environmental activism that will further push readers to shift from hard to soft copies.
In a way one could say its a way of survival. E-books will help readers move away from physical book copies with the help of color, movement, interactivity and connectivity therefore making it more flexible, sociable, shareable and exciting.
The value of this market is projected to rise above $38 billion by the end of 2026 with an annual growth rate of 3.5%.