Google will try to benefit from Ukrainians’ willingness to pay for digital books

Photo: Reuters

The U.S. corporation Google is preparing to launch Google Books service in Ukraine to allow the owners of Android devices read books in the digital format, representatives of several publishing houses told Capital. They claim that Google has already gathered all required information about the electronic books available to Ukrainian readers at the moment, which in the future they will be able to purchase at the Google Play app store.

Google representatives did not disclose the terms of the launch of the services. “Under our internal policy we do not comment on our plans. As soon as the product is launched, we will disclose the details,” said PR Manager of Google Ukraine Marina Tarasova.

According to the information of publishing houses, the service should have been launched at the end of August – beginning of September, but the launch had to be postponed for technical reasons. At that moment, if you attempt to enter the Ukrainian version of Google Books in Google Play, you will get the following message: “Sorry! Books on Google Play are not available in your country yet. We’re working to bring the content you love to more countries as quickly as possible. Please check back again soon.” The number of smart phones operating on Android in Ukraine is rapidly on the rise. As of the end of Q2 2014, the three largest mobile networks had 9.4 mn handsets, while the total number of smart phones in the mobile networks amounted to some 14 mn.

Pirates’ nursery

The sale of digital books is not the most attractive business sphere in Ukraine, as the majority of users of digital devices prefer not to buy, but download books for free. According to different estimates, the users get up to 95% e-books for free. There is however a positive trend with the number of Ukrainians ready to pay for e-books rising fast. In 2014, 3% of Ukrainians purchased books online, while in 2013 this figure was only 1%, according to GfK Ukraine. Last year e-books accounted for 21% of all books read by the respondents, while this year their number is 24%. Furthermore, the share of purchased digital books grew over the year from 3% to 6%.

Marketing Director of Klub Semeynogo Dosuga Publishing House Iryna Hrymaylo confirms double growth of the use of e-books in Ukraine. The same can be said about foreign readers, she says.

Marketing activity of the trading platform and every publishing house in promoting their products is equally important for Internet sales, just as it is in the sales of paperback books. However, first the Ukrainian reader must be provided with a possibility to buy an e-book quickly, conveniently and not for a high price, she says. “We are expecting the service of Google Play on the market, which could substantially expand the possibilities of Ukrainian readers to buy e-books quickly and conveniently,” says Hrymaylo.

Where the e-books live

The number of the platforms, where Ukrainians can buy digital books, is quite limited. Bookland is one of the largest ones. Together with the manufacturer of e-readers PocketBook it also sells digital books through Obreey service. Around 1,000 books in electronic format are available on the website of Klub Semeynogo Dosuga (KSD), which has been selling them since 2011. Over the past year, the publishing house also established cooperation with major international platforms selling electronic content, such as Amazon, B&N, iSore, Google, the Russian company LitRes and also the subscription service Smart Content Store owned by Kyivstar. Only the last two stores are represented in Ukrainian, according to Hrymaylo. “That is why we cannot say that we have a formed market for the sale of e-books,” she says.

Leading PR Specialist at Kyivstar Ihor Shevchenko tells that currently 45 publishing houses are connected to the Smart Content Store. Besides KSD, the largest partners by the number of offered books include Folio and Multimedia Publishing House of Strelbytskiy. The digital library stock includes over 2,500 books. Over 20% of the library stock is available for free. For a week after registration in the library, a user can read any book without paying for access. The paid access fee is UAH 2.80 per week. Around 80,000 Kyivstar subscribers used this service in August. At that, 60% of subscribers read books that are available for free. Compared with last year, the number of users of the service grew fourfold.

PR Manager at LitRes Alyona Agapiyeva said every ninth reader of the books on the website is from Ukraine. Most users are from the Kyiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Odesa oblasts. However, the share of sales to Ukrainians is not high: last year it was 2.63% of e-books sales and this year the indicator decreased a bit to 1.98%. Overall, there are over 380,000 books on LitRes with over 7,000 of them available for free.