The two major technology companies are making efforts at the same time, which is a reflection of the growing prosperity of the Japanese e-book market.
On December 10 last year, Sharp's "Galapagos" e-book reader was officially launched in Japan. This is Sharp's first entry into the market. On the same day, Sony's "Reader" e-book reader also began to accept reservations in Japan, which is Sony's move back from the local e-book market three years ago.
According to Japanese media reports, Sharp had two products on the same day, namely 10.8-inch home version and 5.5-inch mobile version. At the same time, Sharp's online e-book store is also officially launched, providing users with more than 20,000 e-books, newspapers and magazines. In the spring of 2011, Sharp will also provide video, music and game download services. Sony brought two products, 5-inch and 6-inch. The biggest difference from Sony's models to other countries' markets is that it supports Sharp's XMDF e-book format.
On December 10th, Sharp and Sony set up experience points and sales points in Japan to attract many people. The two companies are also confident in their performance in the e-book reader market.
Starting from home on July 20 last year, Sharp announced that it will formally enter the e-book industry during the year, fully involved in file format development, e-book content production, distribution platform and e-book reader products. It hopes to share in this hot market. Have a drink. Sharp also plans to push the e-book business to overseas markets and is considering landing the US, Europe and China markets this year. Masami Ohbatake, director of communications at Sharp, said Sharp will sell e-book readers in these areas as "media tablet computers" that integrate e-book reading functions and audio and video playback functions.
Masami Ohbatake said that after the launch of the product, sales of the "Galapagos" e-book reader started well in Japan. However, he is not willing to give specific sales figures.
Sharp's goal is allegedly to sell one million e-book readers before the end of this year. However, some people are not optimistic about this, according to Atul Goyal, senior analyst at CLSA, Sharp's e-book reader lacks a competitive advantage. He expressed concern about how Sharp made money in this crowded market.
Sharp believes that XMDF software can reduce the publisher’s cost of distributing electronic content and help increase their competitiveness in the e-book market. The XMDF e-book format was introduced by Sharp in 2001 and is currently widely used in Japan for electronic versions of novels and comics. Sharp announced in a new generation of XMDF e-book format last year that "publishers using this e-book specification can electronically and quickly electronicize some attractive information content, and this product will bring an innovation to everyone's e-book life. "It is reported that Sharp's e-book reader will also plan to support other formats such as PDF, HTML and EPUB in the future.
In the e-book industry, in addition to terminals, the content platform is the main competition point for major companies. At present, Sharp has established cooperative relationships with a number of Japan's top content providers. It also plans to use its advantage of having multiple terminals to continuously improve the media linkage mechanism between terminals, for example, to provide users with LCD TV "AQUOS". The read content is also provided to e-book reader users and the like.
Sharp is the world's leading TV manufacturer and the largest mobile phone manufacturer in Japan. Some analysts believe that Sharp's supply of TVs, mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, and electronic dictionaries to the market, and competitors can easily develop similar products. In this context, Sharp opened an online e-book store. Want to break away from the previous "terminal one-time benefits" model.
Sony, the market leader, was one of the first companies to start selling e-book readers, but it abandoned the Japanese market in 2007. For this reinstatement, Nobuki Kurita, Sony's Japan marketing director, said that Sony hopes to achieve sales of 300,000 units in the first year of listing, and plans to occupy half of the Japanese market by 2012.
Sony believes that its original reason for losing in the local market was the lack of content resources. At the time, Sony provided less than 10,000 electronic books. This time, Sony will open a bookstore in Japan that will provide 20,000 books, mainly Japanese books, for download. Sony previously only opened an online e-book store in North America, providing about 1.2 million books.
Last year, Sony and Japanese telecommunications operators KDDI, Toppan Printing Corporation and Asahi Shimbun established a joint venture company to publish and sell e-books. The company is also considering introducing newspaper, comics, and magazine distribution services to its e-book platform.
At the "e-book Summit 2011" held in Tokyo on December 15 last year, the representative of Sony stated that his e-book reader had a good sales momentum in Japan, and the 6-inch was almost out of stock, and the peripheral accessories were also close to being out of stock.
Sony added another competition point for the two products launched this time – the touch screen. Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division, earlier stated that touch screens are one of the major needs of consumers and consumers are willing to pay more for this function.
Fujio Noguchi, senior vice president of Sony, said that he believes that Japan may become the second or third largest e-reader market in the world. But he also believes that there are some market complexities that still exist.
One of the complicated factors in the Japanese market is that, compared with the enthusiasm of publishers in Europe and America for the e-book industry, Japanese publishers are hesitant to enter this field. Deutsche Bank analyst Takayoshi Koike believes that, unlike the United States, Japan's bookstores are not pressured by price, and they can return unsold books to publishers. Under this system, publishers set retail prices that do not allow discounts, hindering their enthusiasm for providing e-books that are cheaper than paper books.
Sony is a veteran company in the e-books field, but when it comes back to the Japanese market, it faces the pinching of domestic and foreign competitors. It is not easy to achieve breakthrough.
Manufacturers have been active For a long time, Japanese publishers have been relatively conservative about e-books, but e-book sales in the country have been steadily increasing in recent years, in contrast to shrinking traditional publishing markets. According to the Japanese information technology research firm Impress, in 2009, the sales volume of the Japanese publishing industry was 1.9 trillion yen, a decrease of 16% from the previous year, of which the sales of e-books were 57.4 billion yen, although only the entire industry. The 3% still grew by nearly 24% year-on-year.
In May last year, after the Apple iPad landed in Japan, the Japanese publishing industry was enthusiastic. Since the fall of last year, the Japan Electronic Book Press Association, which consists of 31 major publishing organizations in Japan, has sold the 10,000 e-books on the iPad. Subsequently, Japan's domestic terminal manufacturers, telecommunications operators, large-scale publishing organizations, and bookstores joined forces to compete in the field of e-books.
KDDI has also launched its own e-book reader in addition to Sony. Its e-book business department official said: "We have a better understanding of Japanese readers' reading preferences." In the last month of last year, NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile operator, and Japan Printing Co., Ltd. reached an agreement to establish a joint venture company and will jointly launch an e-book service. . Toshiba also confirmed that the e-book business is a topic it is exploring in many ways.
Foreign companies also showed great interest in Japan's e-book market. Google has decided to launch e-book service in the Japanese market this year. China's Hanwang Corporation also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Japanese publishing house CREEKRIVER several months ago. Hanwang chairman Liu Yingjian (Weibo) stated that Hanwang intends to enter the Japanese e-book market through this cooperation. However, he also mentioned that the expansion of the Japanese e-book market is relatively difficult, and Sony has failed to succeed. The Hanwang will also face many difficulties.
Sharp's Masami Ohbatake said that the Sharp e-book reader's name "Galapagos" originated from the "Galapagos phenomenon." The “Galapagos phenomenon†has been a topic of heated discussion in the Japanese manufacturing industry in the past year. It means that Japan’s manufacturing is falling into an embarrassing situation of being significantly weakened from its local competitiveness. In the global technology market, Japanese manufacturers are an important force. They have led the trend in televisions, music players, mobile phones, and notebook computers. However, they have lagged behind in the e-book trend. In this context, it is worth looking forward to whether or not the Japanese manufacturers that have started their efforts in the e-book market can come out of a bright future.
On December 10 last year, Sharp's "Galapagos" e-book reader was officially launched in Japan. This is Sharp's first entry into the market. On the same day, Sony's "Reader" e-book reader also began to accept reservations in Japan, which is Sony's move back from the local e-book market three years ago.
According to Japanese media reports, Sharp had two products on the same day, namely 10.8-inch home version and 5.5-inch mobile version. At the same time, Sharp's online e-book store is also officially launched, providing users with more than 20,000 e-books, newspapers and magazines. In the spring of 2011, Sharp will also provide video, music and game download services. Sony brought two products, 5-inch and 6-inch. The biggest difference from Sony's models to other countries' markets is that it supports Sharp's XMDF e-book format.
On December 10th, Sharp and Sony set up experience points and sales points in Japan to attract many people. The two companies are also confident in their performance in the e-book reader market.
Starting from home on July 20 last year, Sharp announced that it will formally enter the e-book industry during the year, fully involved in file format development, e-book content production, distribution platform and e-book reader products. It hopes to share in this hot market. Have a drink. Sharp also plans to push the e-book business to overseas markets and is considering landing the US, Europe and China markets this year. Masami Ohbatake, director of communications at Sharp, said Sharp will sell e-book readers in these areas as "media tablet computers" that integrate e-book reading functions and audio and video playback functions.
Masami Ohbatake said that after the launch of the product, sales of the "Galapagos" e-book reader started well in Japan. However, he is not willing to give specific sales figures.
Sharp's goal is allegedly to sell one million e-book readers before the end of this year. However, some people are not optimistic about this, according to Atul Goyal, senior analyst at CLSA, Sharp's e-book reader lacks a competitive advantage. He expressed concern about how Sharp made money in this crowded market.
Sharp believes that XMDF software can reduce the publisher’s cost of distributing electronic content and help increase their competitiveness in the e-book market. The XMDF e-book format was introduced by Sharp in 2001 and is currently widely used in Japan for electronic versions of novels and comics. Sharp announced in a new generation of XMDF e-book format last year that "publishers using this e-book specification can electronically and quickly electronicize some attractive information content, and this product will bring an innovation to everyone's e-book life. "It is reported that Sharp's e-book reader will also plan to support other formats such as PDF, HTML and EPUB in the future.
In the e-book industry, in addition to terminals, the content platform is the main competition point for major companies. At present, Sharp has established cooperative relationships with a number of Japan's top content providers. It also plans to use its advantage of having multiple terminals to continuously improve the media linkage mechanism between terminals, for example, to provide users with LCD TV "AQUOS". The read content is also provided to e-book reader users and the like.
Sharp is the world's leading TV manufacturer and the largest mobile phone manufacturer in Japan. Some analysts believe that Sharp's supply of TVs, mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, and electronic dictionaries to the market, and competitors can easily develop similar products. In this context, Sharp opened an online e-book store. Want to break away from the previous "terminal one-time benefits" model.
Sony, the market leader, was one of the first companies to start selling e-book readers, but it abandoned the Japanese market in 2007. For this reinstatement, Nobuki Kurita, Sony's Japan marketing director, said that Sony hopes to achieve sales of 300,000 units in the first year of listing, and plans to occupy half of the Japanese market by 2012.
Sony believes that its original reason for losing in the local market was the lack of content resources. At the time, Sony provided less than 10,000 electronic books. This time, Sony will open a bookstore in Japan that will provide 20,000 books, mainly Japanese books, for download. Sony previously only opened an online e-book store in North America, providing about 1.2 million books.
Last year, Sony and Japanese telecommunications operators KDDI, Toppan Printing Corporation and Asahi Shimbun established a joint venture company to publish and sell e-books. The company is also considering introducing newspaper, comics, and magazine distribution services to its e-book platform.
At the "e-book Summit 2011" held in Tokyo on December 15 last year, the representative of Sony stated that his e-book reader had a good sales momentum in Japan, and the 6-inch was almost out of stock, and the peripheral accessories were also close to being out of stock.
Sony added another competition point for the two products launched this time – the touch screen. Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division, earlier stated that touch screens are one of the major needs of consumers and consumers are willing to pay more for this function.
Fujio Noguchi, senior vice president of Sony, said that he believes that Japan may become the second or third largest e-reader market in the world. But he also believes that there are some market complexities that still exist.
One of the complicated factors in the Japanese market is that, compared with the enthusiasm of publishers in Europe and America for the e-book industry, Japanese publishers are hesitant to enter this field. Deutsche Bank analyst Takayoshi Koike believes that, unlike the United States, Japan's bookstores are not pressured by price, and they can return unsold books to publishers. Under this system, publishers set retail prices that do not allow discounts, hindering their enthusiasm for providing e-books that are cheaper than paper books.
Sony is a veteran company in the e-books field, but when it comes back to the Japanese market, it faces the pinching of domestic and foreign competitors. It is not easy to achieve breakthrough.
Manufacturers have been active For a long time, Japanese publishers have been relatively conservative about e-books, but e-book sales in the country have been steadily increasing in recent years, in contrast to shrinking traditional publishing markets. According to the Japanese information technology research firm Impress, in 2009, the sales volume of the Japanese publishing industry was 1.9 trillion yen, a decrease of 16% from the previous year, of which the sales of e-books were 57.4 billion yen, although only the entire industry. The 3% still grew by nearly 24% year-on-year.
In May last year, after the Apple iPad landed in Japan, the Japanese publishing industry was enthusiastic. Since the fall of last year, the Japan Electronic Book Press Association, which consists of 31 major publishing organizations in Japan, has sold the 10,000 e-books on the iPad. Subsequently, Japan's domestic terminal manufacturers, telecommunications operators, large-scale publishing organizations, and bookstores joined forces to compete in the field of e-books.
KDDI has also launched its own e-book reader in addition to Sony. Its e-book business department official said: "We have a better understanding of Japanese readers' reading preferences." In the last month of last year, NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile operator, and Japan Printing Co., Ltd. reached an agreement to establish a joint venture company and will jointly launch an e-book service. . Toshiba also confirmed that the e-book business is a topic it is exploring in many ways.
Foreign companies also showed great interest in Japan's e-book market. Google has decided to launch e-book service in the Japanese market this year. China's Hanwang Corporation also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Japanese publishing house CREEKRIVER several months ago. Hanwang chairman Liu Yingjian (Weibo) stated that Hanwang intends to enter the Japanese e-book market through this cooperation. However, he also mentioned that the expansion of the Japanese e-book market is relatively difficult, and Sony has failed to succeed. The Hanwang will also face many difficulties.
Sharp's Masami Ohbatake said that the Sharp e-book reader's name "Galapagos" originated from the "Galapagos phenomenon." The “Galapagos phenomenon†has been a topic of heated discussion in the Japanese manufacturing industry in the past year. It means that Japan’s manufacturing is falling into an embarrassing situation of being significantly weakened from its local competitiveness. In the global technology market, Japanese manufacturers are an important force. They have led the trend in televisions, music players, mobile phones, and notebook computers. However, they have lagged behind in the e-book trend. In this context, it is worth looking forward to whether or not the Japanese manufacturers that have started their efforts in the e-book market can come out of a bright future.