Western Europe Sees Huge Shift Toward E-Books

paidcontent reporting:

Europe has lagged behind the U.S. in widespread adoption of e-books, but a new report suggests that they are finally taking off. The e-book market in Western Europe grew by 400 percent in 2010, a new report finds. By 2015, e-books should make up 15 percent of total book sales in the region. (By contrast, in the U.S., they were already at 6.4 percent in 2010.)

Futuresource Consulting, a UK-based consulting firm, published the research on e-books and e-readers. “Despite all this rapid growth in demand for e-books in Western Europe, the market is still in its infancy, representing less than 1 percent of total consumer spending on books,” Futuresource market analyst Fiona Hoy said. “Moving forward, there are enormous opportunities within the market and our forecasts show Western European e-book revenues will reach €1.6 billion by 2015, accounting for 15% of total book spend and representing one out of every five books sold in the region.”

As a point of reference, e-books in the United States comprised 6.4 percent of consumer spending on trade books in 2010, according to the most recent data available from BookStats—up from just 0.6 percent of the trade market in 2008. Total net revenue from trade e-books in 2010 was $878 million.
Some other findings from Futuresource’s report:
—The UK is ahead of other countries in terms of e-book sales and adoption, generating close to half of all Western European e-book spend last year despite only accounting for 15% of the region’s spend on print titles. The country is on track to achieve sales of £100 million this year, with e-books predicted to make up over 5 percent of total UK consumer spending on books.
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