The e-book industry is hoping that Korea’s large enterprises will boost domestic demand, prior to market entry by large-global companies including Amazon and Kobo.
According to the industry, GS Home Shopping will start its e-Book service next month with 'Tabon Books’. CJ HelloVision has already introduced an integrated e-Book and Internet service, at the end of 2013.
GS Home Shopping is scheduled to embark on an e-book business to target both domestic and international markets. Tabon Books will handle the e-Pub 2.0 and e-Pub 3.0 based e-Book publishing and distribution in Korea. Unlike existing service providers, Tabon Books focuses on e-Pub 3.0 based e-Books, which provides other services, such as interactive video content, printed books, animations and videos.
Tabon Books internally published around 2000 e-Pub 3.0 based e-Books covering various fields including fine art and aerospace engineering. “We internally published the interactive e-Pub 3.0 based e-Books as their distribution in Korea is extremely weak,” said a Tabon Books insider. “We will gradually shift to focus on e-Pub 3.0 based e-Books for toddlers.”
“Korea's e-Book market is small. However, the market is huge abroad,” explained the Tabon Books insider. He said confidently, “We have a wide market for entry, such as in Asia and the Middle East.” For this reason they plan to launch both a domestic and international service.
GS E&C is also striving continuously for successful e-Book library establishment. According to GS E&C, an e-Book library for the residents of the high-end 'Xai apartments' has 143,775 e-Books, the largest in the industry. GS E&C will continue to produce e-Book content in order to increase customer satisfaction.
CJ HelloVision has already commenced e-Book business. The company has launched ‘Culture Internet Service’ to combine e-Book service to its optic LAN Internet service. Culture Internet users can access e-Book contents free of charge.
CJ HelloVision CEO Kim Jin-seok said, “We are not creating e-Book contents yet. We are servicing e-Books to our Internet users through cooperation.”
For now, the e-Book industry is welcoming large enterprises to enter the market. It anticipates that large enterprises will increase demand in Korea, before entry by the likes of Amazon and Kobo.
Adapted from Original article on ETNews
