  The purpose of this study was to provide insights into the eBook market in
China through case studies on eBook companies and a survey research with
individual eBook users. The information from three companies, Beijing Superstar
Electric Company, Beijing Founder APABI Technology Limited, and Beijing Sursen
Electronic Technology Company Limited, showed that the B2B market has been
developed due to the huge requirement from organization customers, universities
libraries in particularly, and the B2C market is still immature. The
information from interviews and relative data revealed that both Superstar and
Sursen have serious copyright infringement which is an important problem
impeding the further development of the eBook market. The questionnaire
explored awareness, purchase, reading and other experiences of eBook end-users.
Questions indicated that readers were attracted by the technical advantages
including costless to copy, easy to transfer, searchable and easy to store, but
did not want to pay for eBooks. Because the computers, especially desktop PCs,
were the main device for reading and the CRT displays were massive used while
there were few dedicated reading device in the market, many eBook end-users
still preferred to read extended passages of text on papers rather than
screens. Today the copyrights issue, user acceptance and the reading device are
three significant obstacles for eBook industry in China.
