A commuter (L) reads on a Kindle e-reader while riding the subway in Cambridge, Massachusetts March 18, 2011. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One in five American adults read an electronic book in the last year, as gift-giving sped the shift away from the printed page, a Pew Research Center survey showed on Wednesday.
In a sweeping survey of e-books' impact on reading habits, the Pew report said that four times more U.S. readers, or 15 percent, were reading e-books on a typical day now compared with less than two years ago.
But when it comes to reading in bed, the verdict is split. Forty-five percent of those surveyed preferred e-books and 43 percent gave the nod to old-fashioned print.
Lee Rainie, the head of the Pew Internet Project, which conducted the survey, said the results underscored huge cultural and publishing changes as people do more of their book reading online.
"People's relationship to books is a central part of culture. So when that relationship is in transition like it is now, it's an interesting thing to mark," he said.
The e-book industry has grown from $78 million in sales in 2008 to $1.7 billion in 2011, according to Albert Greco, a book industry expert at Fordham University. He has estimated e-book sales will be $3.55 billion in 2012.
Forrester, a consultancy, has forecast that nearly a quarter of Americans will own an e-book reader by 2016. With prices for top models below $100, the readers "are a no-brainer for more and more consumers," it said in a report.
Online retailer Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has about 65 percent of the e-book market, according to Cowen & Co estimates.
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