Alibaba Literature and Tmall Book, both under Jack Ma's Alibaba Group, launched a new reading app for mobile devices in Beijing on June 11.
Some of the printed books provided by the online platform Tmall Book are also available in electronic form, covering categories including children's literature, bestsellers and self-help books.
Yu Qian, chief executive officer of Alibaba Literature, says that "Tmall Reader will further accelerate the process of turning printed books into electronic ones, so that we can offer our customers better content that they can enjoy in their fast-paced lives.
"Our goal is to make reading easier, more efficient and interesting"
Statistics show that the revenues of China's book market reached 80.3 billion yuan (US$ 12.4 billion) in 2017. The sales volume of books via online platforms increased by 25.8 percent compared with that of the previous year, and sales of books in bookstores grew by 2.3 percent year-on-year.
Tmall Book's revenues hit 35 billion yuan in 2017, with more than 3,000 private book businesses and more than 300 publishers utilizing the online platform.
Tmall Reader is expected to increase sales of both printed and electronic books, while data accrued by the platform will also give creators of books, TV series, plays, films and video games a direct response from consumers as well as inspiration for future content.
In the future, Tmall Reader will develop more products, including audio books, so that mobile phones will become mobile bookshelves for their customers.
