With 9,800 employees, the group has total capital of RMB6.5 billion and sales income of RMB3.9 billion per year. It turus out more than 10,000 kinds of publications including books, audiovisual products, electronic and online publications as well as 47 types of periodicals and newspapers every year. It has a 7% market share in the domestic publication retail market and makes more than 1,000 copyright deals every year.
The group, the country’s largest import and export publication company, exports and imports more than 200,000 various publications every year, accounting for 62% and 30% of the trade in books and periodicals respectively. The group also owns 27 overseas presses, book chain stores and administration bodies with business in more than 130 countries.
Publishing Technology Advances and the Rapid Development of Digital Publishing
In terms of the history of publishing, the progress of the industry has been driven by reforms and transformations in publishing and printing technology. Since the 1980s, advances in Chinese publishing and printing have narrowed the gap with the most advanced in the world and have given momentum to the development of contemporary Chinese publishing.
In July 1981, the first computer of China, Chinese character laser editing and composing system Huaguang I went through appraisal at the ministry-level. Chinese character laser editing and composing technology helped the Chinese publishing industry enter into the new age of “light and electricity” and end the age of “lead and fire.” Its inventor Wang Xuan has been praised as the “Bi Sheng of modern China.” (Bi Sheng was the inventor of movable-type printing technology in ancient China.)
After that, laser editing and composing technology was upgraded and color laser editing and composing invented. Due to the system’s technology and price, 99% of presses and printing factories in Mainland China use it. Since 1991, presses in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have also used it, including Ta Kun Pao of Hong Kong, the Macao Daily News and Taiwan’s Central Daily News. This system has also been introduced to other countries such as Malaysia, the US, Canada, Thailand and Japan. The system allows for faster composition and production of Chinese publishing, saves manpower, financial and material resources and facilitates the digitalization of the entire publishing process and lays a foundation Chinese publishing to keep up with its overseas counterparts.
The rise of new media technologies, such as internet networks and mobile phones, provides a sound environment for the development of Chinese digital publishing. By the end of September 2009, there were 360 million internet users in China, a popularization rate of 27.1%. The number of users of mobile internet was 192 million and 99.33 million people used broadband internet. The expansion of basic Internet resources saw the number of IP addresses hit 123 million, the second largest in the world. Total domain name registrations were the highest in the world at 5 million.
In terms of the scale of the market, in 2008, the output value of the internet industry was nearly RMB150 billion. The output value of IT, production, software and the digital industries was RMB200 billion. According to the statistics, in 2009, the total number of mobile phone users exceeded 700 million.
With plenty of new media equipment available, most literate people have the necessary terminals to read new media with products such as the Apabi Reader by the Founder Company, the Hanwang E-Book and Chinese On-line E-Book. These digital publications have large reader groups and market share.
Over the past few years, the scale of digital publishing has grown with an improved industrial chain and various publishing forms. As network and digital reading become important reading forms, e-book, publishing on demand, mobile phone publishing and blogs begin to play an important role in Chinese publishing. In 2002, the value of digital publishing was RMB1.59 billion; by 2008, it had multiplied many times to RMB53 billion.
Based on “The Report on the Development Trend of Chinese E-Books in 2007,” there were 660,000 e-books published and more than 300,000 were in widespread circulation. The number of readers on the market was 59 million and total sales income in 2007 reached RMB169, 400,000. Sales income of five publishing houses in 2007 hit RMB5 million, while 10 others sold more than RMB4 million.
Recently, with the rapid development of digital publishing has pushed traditional publishing to speed up its transformation. Until the end of 2008, 90% of presses had launched e-book publishing business and published 500,000 different e-books with income from them reaching RMB300 million. Some 300 newspaper had some kind of digital newspaper business with 9,000 kinds of digital periodicals and annual sales of RMB760 million.
The Commercialization of Publishing System Speeds up in an Improving Legal Environment
To satisfy the needs of economic development and international competition, changes have taken place in China’s press and publication system and the reform has become fast and intensive in the past years. Presses are divided into two types, to either meet the public interest or for profit.
The later ones have gradually become companies and put in place modern operations that adhere to the law. “The Enforcement Program on the Deepening Reform of Publishing and Distribution System” stipulated by the General Administration of Press and Publications in 2006, encouraged publishing and distribution groups to hold stock of each other and take part in mergers and acquisitions. It also encouraged non-public capital to enter into industries approved by various policies.