By Chris Chang, posted Sep 15, 2011 at 2:37 PM, 1,249 views,

China’s Largest Online Book Retailer to Launch eReader App for iPad

Need a bit more evidence that the e-book download business is a whole lot different than the music download business? Then look no further than the Shanghai-based 99 Online Bookstore, which has just announced that it plans to make its own eReader app available for the Apple iPad and iPhone. Details are otherwise a bit light, but the app will allow iPad users to browse the bookstore’s library and purchase copyrighted e-books for just 60 percent of the cost of buying a printed version.

99 Online Bookstore is something like Amazon, and over the last seven years, 99 Online Bookstore has developed into south China’s largest online book retailer. There’s over 150,000 types of items available for sale on the online bookstore, and they cover almost any kinds of books you are looking for in China.

Today, Shanghai 99 Readers’ Culture Co., Ltd., the owner of the store, plans to sell an e-reader application through Apple’s App Store by the end of this year in an effort to capitalize on the increasing popularity of tablet computers and mobile devices. Here’s what Huang Yuhai, the company’s president, said,

“The Internet is an infinite bookshelf.”

He is right. Ever since Apple’s iPad is introduced to the world, the Internet offers numerous iPad download sites and when doing a quick search on Google, you will be confronted with tons of websites offering iPad novels, ebooks, apps, and comics. And perhaps the most incredible thing we are seeing is that the iPad has triggered a buying frenzy in China after debuting last April, with massive crowds of die-hard Apple fans lining up to purchase the iPad. The International Data Corporation, a market analyst, has estimated that China will purchase more than 2.5 million tablet computers in 2011, quadrupling the number bought in 2010.

What’s more, according to a survey on reading habits conducted by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publications last year, 3.9 percent of the survey’s 19,418 respondents said they read books via mobile devices, three times the number reported in a similar survey conducted in 2009.

Traditional publishing houses in China are starting to move forward, and launching e-books for tablet computers and mobile devices could be a breakthrough for them. Looking at 99 Online Bookstore’s plan, we’re pretty sure the Chinese book publishers will adapt to the rising popularity of e-books.

Source: Xinhua News