The Global eBook Report: Current Conditions & Future Projections. Update October 2013

awareness about copyright continue to be a concern here, but policies and legal frameworks have been put in place to address them, such as the revised Copyright Act (in 2012) and the strengthening of the Indian Reprographics Rights Organization (IRRO). Print book penetration has been long-challenged by a fragmented value chain (especially at distribution level), poor infrastructure, and the lack of access to and affordability of books. India is one of the lowest priced book markets in the world, yet book publishers lose 20% of sales due to pirated printed copies.
    Although the literacy levels in India increased by 9% in the decade of 2001–2011 since the last decade (literacy rate is 74.04% for 1.2 billion population in 2011), there are acute fissures in access to digital opportunities. Of all the literate people in India, those that are literate in the primary language of digital information, i.e. English, make up 6% of the total population.
    The Government of India is leading several initiatives to promote digital literacy and provide access to digital content at school and college levels. National level missions such as the Rs 4612 crore ($768.7 million) National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT) have been introduced. The NME-ICT is working in collaboration with other related missions and schemes — National Knowledge Network , Scheme of ICT in Schools , National Translation Mission , and the Vocational Education Mission .
    The country’s well-established IT software industry has made India a sought-after destination for outsourced services. Nearly 60% of global publishing industry’s outsourcing of business processes comes to India. Conversion and digitization of backlist and archives tops the list of services sourced, according to the analytics agency, ValueNotes . India leads ahead of US, UK, Philippines, and Europe in the publishing industry’s business process outsourcing (BPO) segment because of its price advantage.
    The proliferation of personal devices for accessing content is expected to create the demand for book content on digital platforms. E-ink devices for ereading were picking up sales in 2011 and early 2012 in India. The sale of home-grown versions — Wink Reader (now discontinued) and Infibeam’s Pi — and later, of Kindle, created an entry-point for ebook reading. Now there are more than 70 reader devices available in the market.
    However, by late 2012 the surge in tablet sales suggested that India would opt to migrate directly to tablets than use a single-purpose device like an ereader. The evidence in 2013 shows that smartphones and phablets might outsell tablets, and become the preferred devices for consuming a range of digital content including books. So far, most ereading devices and book-related apps have piggy-backed on the bulk of freely available out-of-copyright digitized books, classics from around the world, and have been able to attract consumers to access books on a digital device. In India, because it is a low-priced editions market, especially in trade segment, ebooks don’t yet compete with print books since price is not yet a major differentiator. But publishers are experimenting and there is no pricing norm in place yet.
    Readers’ demographics
    India’s large youth population (13–35 years) is a sizeable market potential for publishers. Estimated to be 459 million in 2009, youth constitute 38% of India’s total population. Of these, 73% youth are literate, with a majority residing in rural areas.
    According to the National Youth Readership Survey 2009, [N1] half of the readers surveyed gave “knowledge enhancement” as the first reason for reading leisure books. The survey also revealed that more literate youth in urban areas were readers.
    Soon after Independence in 1947, when literacy and education levels were dismal, school textbooks and examination-based reading were given priority by policy-makers — trends that remain strong to this day. This is seen in the ebooks segment too: several institutions, through their libraries, have been making ebooks available, primarily of science, technical and mediacl (STM) subjects, for students since the last 5–6 years.
    The current demand for ebooks is coming from the six metropolitan (Tier I) cities — Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. The Global E-Book Monitor of the market research firm Bowker , a 10-country sample survey conducted in early 2012, estimated that 2% of the Indian