As the number of available e-book titles continues to increase and prices fall, Russians are exhibiting an "increasing affinity for reading on screens, [but] market players caution that it will be a long time before e-books replace printed titles," Moscow Times reported, noting that the "size of the Russian e-book market is currently $2.2 million, with e-books accounting for less than 1% of total book sales."
E-book prices on LitRes, the market leader in Russian e-book sales, range from 10 rubles (33 cents) for Tolstoy's novel Childhood to 250 rubles ($8.50) for the Russian translation of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs. RBK Research estimates that in a "best-case scenario, e-books' share of the Russian book market could hit 30% by 2015," Moscow Times wrote.
Mikhail Osin, director of the digital sales department for Ozon.ru--which has been called "Russia's Amazon"--said, "Sales of e-books are rising at a fast rate, and this trend will continue in the future.... new technologies are occupying a segment of the market, which of course is a concern to publishers, making them adapt their business model and even switch to the production of electronic books." Ozon.ru had a 40% increase in e-book sales in 2011, with e-reader purchases rising 250%.
Over the past two years, prices for e-reading devices have dropped about 30%. Yevgeny Militsa, director of e-reader retailer PocketBook Russia--whose e-readers range in price from 3,400 rubles ($115) to 15,000 rubles ($507)--said his company sold approximately 400,000 devices in 2011, which doubled 2010 sales. He expects the market to grow another 50% in 2012.
And yet, as Alexander Bobrowski of LitRes observed: "For many Russians, the value of a book still lies in its tangibility. For this reason paper still prevails."
