A number of leading companies are jumping into the electronic book (eBook) market. Market pioneers Amazon.com Inc of the US and Sony Corp of Japan are being joined by firms from the Internet business, content industry and even device manufacturing.
According to the chief executive officer (CEO) of a Korean eBook reader manufacturer, "The fact that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd of Korea has entered the market is a promise that the market will grow."
From 2009 through 2010, a host of famous-name companies will be entering the eBook market, eager to join leaders like Amazon.com and Sony (Fig 1). Samsung Electronics, for example, is frequently described as a company that is better at catching up to the front-runners and stealing a market than at pioneering one, but from June 2009 it has been releasing a succession of eBook readers in Korea, North America and elsewhere. Google Inc of the US plans to launch eBook sales at the end of 2009. It disclosed this at a publishing industry event in the US in June the same year. Media conglomerates like Hearst Corp of the US and News Corp of the US will join in, along with major content providers like Barnes & Noble Inc of the US, the largest book retailer in the US. Hearst will develop and sell its own eBook reader.
There are persistent rumors that Apple Inc of the US will also soon enter the eBook market in a big way. The anecdote that trucks piled with books are lined up in front of their corporate offices every day is an industry legend already. Sony has been expecting this, as Fujio Noguchi, deputy president, Digital Reading Business Div of Sony Electronics Corp of Japan reveals: "There's no question in my mind that Apple is coming."
Until recently, the eBook market has been relatively minor, but suddenly the scene has transformed into a frenzied melee as well-known companies from many sectors struggle for a bigger piece of the pie.
A number of promising proposals are popping up in the eBook market, almost as if it remains unaffected by the worldwide economic downturn that began in the second half of 2008. For example, the quantity of eBook readers shipped by companies like Amazon.com and Sony has soared from the end of 2008 through 2009. And right in parallel with that growth has been significant growth in the scale of the eBook content market, also from the second half of 2008.
Growth forecasts for the eBook market are rosy, too. According to a recent report from survey company In-Stat of the US, total global shipments of dedicated eBook readers will hit 28.6 million units in 2013 (Fig 1b). Considering that 2008 shipments were only about one million units, this represents a 30-fold increase in only five years.
Nikkei Electronics |
Nikkei Monozukuri |
Nikkei Automotive Technology |
|---|---|---|
 |
 |
 |
| The magazine for electronics designers and managers. | Design You Won't Regret - How to Reduce the Risk of Accidents | The comprehensive automotive technology magazine. |
Copyright © 1995-2010 Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
All editorial content and graphics on this Web site may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the copyright owner.
