Since Amazon started selling their Kindle e-book reader in den USA, Germans more and more discover electronic books as well. 2.2 million people in Germany are currently planning to buy digital books this year. This was the finding of a survey carried out by the Forsa market research institute.
“Digital books unite the strengths of a traditional book and the advantages of the digital world – everybody can carry the contents of a thousands books with themselves without carrying loads of books around“, is the explanation by Mr Achim Berg, vice president of the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), given fort the sudden interest in e-books. However, the market for digital books is just at the beginning of its development, according to BITKOM.
An increasing proliferation of cost-efficient netbooks and the increasing number of titles which are available electronically will certainly increase demand for ebooks. A particularly high potential is attributed to specialised books. The same goes for reference books. Many of these are published in very small circulations which leads to high prices. Mr Berg believes that in the field of reference books digital books will achieve their first breakthrough.
E-books are particularly popular among the young generation. In the age group between 14 and 29 years of age 5% are planning to purchase e-books this year. 