Android_One_devices_944_thumb.jpgA report in India’s Asian Age details some great expectations for e-book sales in that 1.276 billion-strong market. Specifically, it forecasts that heavy smartphone adoption in India could drive the e-book share of the subcontinent’s total book market to 25 percent within three years.

Recent research shows that India has overhauled China as the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone market, and will hit 65 percent smartphone penetration by 2019, from 30 percent currently. As of 2014, India was already the world’s second largest mobile phone market, with 275 million units shipped. And smartphones in India are a valuable access tool for many services – as well as, ultimately, the e-reading device of choice.

Google for one has been pushing its Android One reference platform as a perfect fit for Indian requirements and budgets, and such devices are likely to be the preferred e-reading gadgets, given limited Indian incomes and the high level of mobile phone coverage. With up to 75 percent of India’s population still without any connection to the internet at all, the subcontinent’s need for good smartphone services is a obvious as its potential.

Expectations of the Indian e-book market have been pitched high in the past. Perhaps the burgeoning smartphone ecosystem there may finally be set to deliver on these.

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