Asia as in mobile

No surprise that when you look at ebook adoption in Asia it is mobile generated and not ereader-centric. Check out this report from Publishing Perspectives. that deals with Korea (see earlier post), Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. Korea -- meaning South Korea, of course -- clearly is the growth center, but to put things in perspective in those four countries ebook sales remain less than 2% of the local book market. I would summarize: Just as in the Western culture, there is not enough time for people to enjoy long-form blogging; in the East there are not enough devices for people to enjoy long-from anything.

Korea gone gangbusters

South Korea, what a contrast with the North. The ebook market is expected to grow like gangbusters, according to the Korea Herald. In the North you have a starving nation run by a 28-year-old fanatic. In the South, you have market freedom, perhaps, like no other place in the world. They are embracing a new way of reading to the tune of growth from $325 billion won in 2012 to $753 billion won in 2013, according to the Herald. Now part of the reason is that in Korea the smartphones often have more than a 5" in display, so they can be comfortably used to read books, in addition to making phone calls. To put simply, the Koreans have combined the phone and the tablet. That's a great combination that doesn't exist in the U.S., where we tend to have small display smartphones (3" perhaps) and then, as a separate device, an ereader with a screen at least 5".