e-Book interest on the rise
The Australian arm of Canada-based e-books company Kobo estimates that there has been at least a 30% increase in traffic to its sites, generating 'good' sales, since REDgroup Retail slipped into voluntary administration in February.
"The mere fact that there is all this speculation whether e-books had pushed REDgroup into administration drove a lot of people to look at e-books,” says Kobo's Australian head Malcolm Neil. “We actually saw a huge sales spike in the couple weeks afterwards.”
Neil estimates that e-book retail sales represent about 3% to 4% of the total amount of books sold in Australia last year, resulting in total e-book revenue of between $42 million and $52 million, according to Smart Company.
Amazon also earlier confirmed a similar trend in January, saying its Kindle e-book reader is now their best-selling product, says Smart House.
They also sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books. In the US, 115 Kindles have been sold for every 100 paperbacks so far in 2011.
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