Digital daze

More Chinese read through their smartphones.

According to the academy, 66 percent of the people responding earlier this year preferred reading paper books. While 15 percent of people read online on computers, there were 15.6 percent that used mobile phones for reading. The users of e-reading devices such as Kindle were only 2.4 percent.

Most of the people who prefer digital reading are aged from 18 to 49, representing 92.6 percent of those who tried to read e-books. The survey said that children under 17 remain largely readers of paper books due to their parents' concern over their eyesight.

The rapid development of digital reading poses challenges for both digital and traditional publishers as the survey finds that more than 90 percent of readers claim they won't buy paper books after they have read the same title online while only around 40 percent of them are willing to pay for the content, and the rest only read free content.

According to the annual report of China's publishing industry from 2013 to 2014, the operating revenue for digital publishing in China touched 250 billion yuan (around $40 billion), with a profit of nearly 20 billion yuan by 2013.

As the second-largest book market after the United States, China's total output in publishing, printing and distribution exceeded 1.82 trillion yuan in 2013, up 9.7 percent from the previous year.

But while digital publishing has grown rapidly, the growth of the traditional publishing sector in China has been slowing down in the past few years. In 2013, digital publishing grew at 31.3 percent as compared to 2012, earning 19.9 billion yuan.

But experts don't think traditional publishing will fade away soon.

"Even for traditional publishing, though its market share will shrink, I don't think it will die out, and for the time being, it will still remain stable," Xiao Dongfa, the director of Modern Publishing Institute at Peking University, tells China Daily.

He adds that overall publishing will remain a "sunrise industry", because Chinese like to read.

"Be it digital or traditional, the needs for education, entertainment and obtaining information all point to publishing."

Sun Lijun, a professor of publishing at Renmin University of China, agrees with the optimism of Xiao, and points out that the burgeoning digital publishing in China has given the country an advantage to compete with mature Western markets. "The stable economic growth is good news for the publishing industry."

Related: Popular e-books in different cities

          Easy Talk: E-book vs Paper book

          Easy Talk: Change of reading styles in the digital age