There is no doubt that Apple has made a radical change in our dealings with books through the iPad, which has become the most famous tablet device in the world and accounts for more than two-thirds of the global market, and one of the most famous uses of the iPad is reading electronic books. A conference on education last January To show a new concept for electronic books, which is "interactive books". Then came the third iPad that supports better screens, enabling the user to read more quality and ease. Indeed, the percentage of Apple in the market has increased and its device has become one of the pillars of education in the developed world and this prompted a number of schools to use the iPad Which It improves students' performance This enabled Apple to withdraw more than 30% of the book market from the original player "Amazon", and recently the latter launched a judicial war against Apple, accusing it of monopoly and seeking profit without caring for users, and Apple lost these cases one by one. What is the secret of these issues? And how was the Apple iBooks Store against the user's best interest?
We go back to 2009 when Apple was preparing for the book market and the iPad. At this time, Amazon was controlling more than 90% of the e-book market and without a competitor, but the policy in managing this monopoly was not bad, even though it was the only one controlling the market, but it was not aiming to raise Prices and preferred to reduce the price of books to sell as many of them as possible, which is good for the user and the reader, but it angered publishing houses, which found little profits from their point of view, and here Apple came and took advantage of this matter and negotiated with these companies and was able to persuade 5 of the 6 largest publishing houses in the United States On publishing their books in the Apple store at a high price and thus raising the prices in general, as the owner of the publishing houses gets a huge profit margin from Apple, Amazon cannot continue to reduce the price and offer offers on the books sold in its store because if it does this, it will not be able to provide the publishing houses the same margin. The profit that Apple provides them, if it must raise the price of books and give them the same profit margin or continue selling at a low price and risk losing their profits or losing publishing houses due to the lack of material return that they get. But Amazon sought to balance the two methods, but this led to a decrease in its percentage from the global market to 60% instead of 90%, and Apple got the 30% difference, and here Amazon decided to wage a judicial war against Apple.
We can say that 2012 was a war against Apple in the field of books, as Amazon, with its huge entity, allied with American consumer protection associations with the Antitrust Authority with 29 US states in lawsuits against Apple and they were able to obtain a court ruling last month to prove that Apple practices monopolistic policies that harm Of course, Apple did not accept this ruling and appealed it in New York last week, but the shock came when the American judge refused to accept Apple's lawsuit ... Of course Apple is still able to pursue the cases and fight this court ruling, but suddenly three of Apple's 5 main allies retreated, and these companies are HarperCollins , Hachette, Simon & Schuster and decided to recognize the court ruling and to conduct interviews with the competent authorities and consumer protection associations for the settlement and agreed to stop supporting Apple and start a new policy for pricing books.
The agreement was that the price in the Apple store would be equal to the cheapest price available for sale on the Internet, whether in the Amazon store or any other electronic book store, and that the gradual shift to new prices would take place within a maximum of two years, and this agreement is a strong blow to Apple, on the one hand it no longer owns The consensus of most major companies to sell books at high prices On the other hand, this decision weakens Apple's judicial position because it means that Apple's partners admit to the mistake and this means that Apple is forced to reconsider its marketing policy because it will not fight government agencies, civil society organizations, Amazon and 29 states and also without support from Major publishing houses.
On the other hand, publishing houses are angry with Amazon, as they buy books from them in huge quantities and at low prices, then sell the e-book at $ 10, and at the same time the publishing house sells the printed version in its stores at $ 28, and this big difference in prices makes the user buy the electronic version. Because buying 3 ebooks = the cost of buying approximately 1 paper book ... Also, Apple was selling books at a more expensive price, which would ensure the continuation of sales of paper books, contrary to Amazon's policy.
Fair point: We must not unfair to Apple and accuse it of greed because it stands in the interest of publishing houses because this matter is not completely harmful, so it must be known that publishing houses are exposed to great losses because the sales of paper books are in constant decline in front of e-book sales, and Amazon does not give them sufficient profits from electronic sales and they are in need of profits To continue working, supporting writers and publishing their books, and the continuing losses mean the publishing house is closed, and without publishing houses there are no books, meaning that Apple was making a wonderful profit for them that guarantees the continuation of the publishing houses.
But after these court battles, Apple has become compelled to reconsider its pricing policy in the books in order not to lose its share in the global market and gradually return to Amazon. Will Apple continue the legal battles or will it respond, cut prices and sacrifice big profits?
Source | cnet
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