What are the prospects for the four business models for the 2010 China e-book market?

Shui Qingmuhua's research report pointed out that the e-book market has risen and matured in the United States, and today e-book reading has become rapidly popular throughout the world as a convenient, environmentally friendly new form of reading. In 2008, the global e-book market shipped about 1 million, and in 2009 it quickly grew to 3.82 million, and it is expected to reach 9.3 million in 2010. Amazon's Kindle, Hanwang's electronic paper book and Sony's Reader accounted for more than 90% of the global market. In 2009, the sales of China’s electronic paper book readers were approximately 380,000 units, of which Hanwang’s e-book sales were approximately 260,000 units. In the first half of 2010, the total sales volume of the Chinese e-book market was 480,300.

With the popularity of smart phones and the introduction of the iPad, the price reduction process for e-books will also accelerate. In 2010, Amazon reduced the Kindle price from 259 US dollars to 189 US dollars, making the Kindle sales in the first half of 2010 three times the first half of 2009. It is expected that there will still be more room for growth in the e-book market in the second half of 2010.

From the upstream, midstream and downstream manufacturers of the e-book industry, E Ink and SiPix, the major upstream e-book technology vendors, were integrated by Taiwan’s Yuan Tai and AU, the mid-stream, and Yuantai acquired a 100% stake in E Ink. Acquired a 31.58% stake in SiPix. The downstream terminal manufacturers take content resources as the core competitiveness, Hanwang is positioned in the market bestseller; Founder Apabi focuses on academics; Shanda Literature is a network literature that is more enthusiastic for youngsters, and all publishers are based on their own. The original resources are the main content support.

Judging from the e-book business model, the US e-book industry model is relatively mature. For example, in the Amazon model, mobile operators are merely channels for content download. At the same time, Amazon, which provides terminal devices and content download platforms, is the leader of the industry. Terminal+content is Amazon's successful business model. In June 2010, Amazon revised and improved its business model through the 70% royalty program, which better coordinated the interests of various manufacturers in the industry chain.

The business model of China's e-books is still in the period of exploration. There are four types, namely the terminal manufacturer-led model, the operator-led model, the e-book portal model, and the publisher-dominated model.

The successful representative of the terminal manufacturer-led model is Hanwang Technology. Hanwang Technology has invested 30 million yuan in the construction and content purchase of Hanwang Book City. Hanwang took the experience of the Amazon model, fully considered the interests of content providers, and divided it into content providers, rapidly establishing a terminal + content model.

The operator-led model is represented by China Mobile's mobile reading base. Compared with mobile operators in the United States, Chinese operators have stronger influence and control, and have sufficient resources to negotiate with content providers, establish download platforms, and promote terminals. China Mobile develops 3G e-book business through customized terminals and cooperation with content providers. However, the principle of four and six divisions of content providers and content providers is less attractive to content providers, and content pricing models have been able to set up the original value-added business model. Subsidies to terminals have not been able to obtain large profit margins in a short period of time. Not only that, China Mobile's e-reading business will also face fierce competition from China Unicom and China Telecom. Therefore, the development of its 3G e-reading business is still quite variable.

The typical representative of the e-book portal model is Shanda and Founder, relying on the Shanda Literature Network and the Sweet Potato Network as powerful e-book content platforms. Among them, Shanda's book has a lot of room for development because the content of the book is not only supported by many literary works under Shanda Literature, but also by Hurray Century Music, Shengshi Film and even a grand game. This makes China Mobile, which stands tall, willing to cooperate with Shanda.

The last one is the publisher-dominated model, such as Shanghai Century Publishing Group, which launched its own readership through its own R&D and built its own powerful content. In the short term, the publisher-dominated model has no copyright problems and has high-quality content resources. However, in the long run, the publisher’s content advantage may become a barrier to its development. Exclusive content is always limited, and the content of a publishing house cannot satisfy the rich and varied reading requirements of users. The only way out for traditional publishers is to acquire a place in the e-reading market through mergers and acquisitions and integration into a super-media group.