After Amazon’s Kindle announced its withdrawal from China, Tencent also decided to “withdraw” from the e-reader track.Since September 26, many netizens have expressed that they have received a notice that the QQ reading e-book device/Pocket Reading will stop operating. On September 28, a reporter from the “Daily Economic News” confirmed the news from Tencent, a leading company in the online literature industry, China Literature (HK00772, stock price of HK$23.7, market value of HK$24.3 billion) (hereinafter referred to as Reading).
ShouldThe company’s e-reader products will stop operating related businesses on October 26, 2022, after which the device will not support new book purchases.
Backed by Qidian Literature and QQ Reading, the QQ reading e-book device/Pocket Reading was popular with users when it was launched in 2017, and was regarded as a powerful tool for reading online texts. But why was it abandoned by the market in just 5 years?
QQ reading e-book device/Pocket reading Image source: Screenshot of Xianyu Platform
And the e-book reader with “paper-like reading, eye-friendly, long standby” has been hailed as one of the greatest inventions in the 21st century by the outside world. It has attracted Founder, Patriot, Newman, Taipower, Dangdang, Well-known hardware companies such as JD.com, Palm Reader, Migu, and Yuewen, or reading platforms that play an important role in the domestic digital reading industry, enter the betting. But now, the lively scene has faded away, who cannibalized the e-reader market?
The successive exits of Kindle and Pocket Reading have also refocused the public’s discussion on online reading.
The world’s first e-book that can make phone calls is out of service
In 2017, the QQ reading electronic paper book was launched, which looks similar to the Kindle. In 2019, the upgraded product Pocket Reader was launched. Its appearance is similar to that of a mobile phone. It is equipped with an ink screen and adds many new functions, such as support for SIM cards and 4G full Netcom. It is the world‘s first e-reader that can make calls, and also With SMS function.
Due to the support of a large number of online literature resources, the outside world once thought that this product from Tencent was a contender in the e-reader industry. But what is unexpected is that on October 26, both QQ reading e-book devices and pocket reading devices will stop operating. Reading’s “Offline Notice” shows that after the QQ reading e-book device/Pocket Reading is out of service, the device no longer supports the purchase of new books, but users can continue to use the device to read downloaded books.
Image source: Screenshot of reading notice
Every time a reporter inquires, it is seen that Tencent’s e-readers have already been discontinued, and Pocket Reader has gradually stopped selling since 2020. A person familiar with the Yuewen e-book project revealed to every reporter that the hardware-oriented e-reader is a relatively heavy asset, not the main direction of the reading. .
“As early as 7 or 8 years ago, I made suggestions to several major domestic e-reader manufacturers, including Tencent, of course, suggesting that they stop this business.”Zhang Yi, founder of iiMedia Research, told every reporter that he was not surprised by the outage of Tencent’s electronic paper book products.“The sooner we stop production, the better. The reason is very simple. In iiMedia’s consumer behavior monitoring, we found that Chinese consumers don’t need electronic paper books at all.”
Mobile phones, reading apps cannibalize the e-reader market
Looking back at the development of the domestic e-book market, Zhang Yi said that after 2011, the constant entry of new players made the industry extremely hot. At that time, with the paper-like, eye-friendly e-reader, it hit the pain points of other electronic hardware products and was sought after by consumers.
Hardware manufacturers such as Founder, Patriot, Newman, Taipower, Dangdang, JD.com, Palm Reader, Migu, and Yuewen have entered the e-reader market one after another, and domestic brands have risen strongly. But the industry was booming in just a few years, and then it went downhill.
“Our monitoring data on consumer behavior over the years found that consumers need a collection of products, that is, a product can solve the problems of watching news, pictures, watching videos and reading novels.” Zhang Yi told every reporter Said that consumer demand for products is very direct, which is the embarrassment of electronic readers.Mobile phones can already provide a very good reading experience, and the public does not need to carry vassal products when going out.
In Zhang Yi’s view, with the popularity of smartphones, larger screens and the improvement of various reading apps, the market for e-readers has been eroded.
The results of the 19th National National Reading Survey show that in terms of reading form, in 2021, 45.6% of adults tend to “read a paper book”, 30.5% “read on a mobile phone”, ” Only 8.4% of adults “read on an e-reader”, and 7.4% “listen to books”. And among digital media, in 2021, adult citizens will have the longest contact time with mobile phones per day, at 101.12 minutes.
This means that in the digital reading market segment, reading through mobile phones has become deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and even the rising star “Tingshu” has the potential to catch up with e-readers.
“The industry has ‘cooled’ down. There are not many participants in this track, and almost the mainstream has given up.” Zhang Yi told the reporter that in recent years, e-readers have been “off the assembly line”, especially this year’s Kindle, Tencent “withdrew” one after another, and the domestic e-reader market entered a bottleneck period. However, Zhang Yi believes that the public’s enthusiasm for digital reading is still there, the online reading market is still “online”, and the scale of the industry will become larger and larger.
The “2021 China Digital Reading Report” shows that the overall scale of China’s digital reading industry in 2021 will reach 41.57 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 18.23%. Among them, the per capita electronic reading volume is 11.58.