New data from Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ (@PwC_LLP & @pwc_press) Global Entertainment and Media Outlook predicts ebooks will constitute 50% of the US trade book market by 2016.
Reporter Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) writes in paidContent (@paidContent) that PwC expects total book spending in North America to remain relatively flat; “1.1% compound annual rate” of increase between 2011 and 2016.
PwC thinks that while total spending on print trade books will decline, the ebook market will be growing fast enough by 2013 to offset those declines. In the US, the company estimates that “around 30% of adults had at least one portable reading device [an e-reader or tablet] in the first quarter of 2012.”
By 2016, PwC expects, “ebooks will account for half of total spending on consumer books” in the US and the total US consumer book market (print + digital) will be worth $21 billion, up from $19.5 billion in 2011.
According to PwC’s blog, the E&M Outlook says 3 behavioral changes are driving global shifts in industry structure and value:
1. From print to digital: Electronic books’ share of total global spending on consumer and educational books will rise from 5% in 2011 to 18% by 2016.
2. From fixed to mobile consumption: Global mobile Internet access increased from 26% of total Internet access spending in 2007 to 40% in 2011 – and will grow to 46% by 2016.
3. From West to East, and North to South: Total revenue growth to 2016 in Central and Eastern Europe/Asia Pacific will be almost double that of North America/Western Europe. And growth in the southern Latin America/Middle East/Africa market will average more than twice that of North America/Europe by 2016.
In the video below, Marcel Fenez, Global Leader, Entertainment & Media at PwC, explains how PwC sees this time period as being “the end of the digital beginning.”
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