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Number of Book Buying Households in Germany Declines as eBook Buyers Grows Rapidly

GfK may have reported that fewer German ebook buyers bought more ebooks last year, but the German Federal Statistics Office, or  Statistisches Bundesamt, announced on Tuesday that the number of ebook buyers in Germany increased by almost 50 percent in the last three years.

According to the press release, 1.6 million households bought ebooks in 2017, an increase of almost 50% from the 1.1 million households that bought ebooks in 2014. With number of book-buying households declining to 20.2 million households in 2017 from 23.4 million households in 2007, the new stats on ebook buyers represent both an increase in buyers and a greater share of book-buying households who had adopted ebooks.

It’s not clear how this jives with GfK data from February which showed that 3.5 million Germans bought 29.1 million ebooks in 2017, a slight increase from the 3.8 million Germans bought 28 million ebooks in 2017.

Destatis.de via Lesen.net

image by Mark B. Schlemmer via Flickr

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Comments


Disgusting Dude December 13, 2018 um 6:26 am

Perfectly reasonable result, actually: avid readers like ebooks, casual readers prefer print.
And casual readers are easily lost to video, gaming, hiking, and other forms of recreation while avid readers, well, they keep on reading.

All readers aren’t created equal.


Sharon December 13, 2018 um 6:53 am

Good news for those of us trying to sell books in Germany as getting into German bookstores is not very easy for indies – ebooks break through that barrier because of several venues available.


Darryl December 13, 2018 um 9:09 pm

And this is despite the ridiculous laws in the European Nanny state seeking to preserve the old status quo!

Xaver Basora December 13, 2018 um 9:57 pm

O don’t worry. The booksellers entities and bookstores will trot out a study showing that people still perfer to shop at bookstores.
And don’t forget that bookstores are historic! Iconic! A vital sacred cultural institution!
in small print they’ll mention how they make ebook more expensive than printbooks. because HOCHKULTUR!
Paper is a sacred medium!
xavier


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