Liters book service launches website and mobile application on iOS and Android in Turkey
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The e-book and audiobook service “Litres” is launching a website and mobile application on iOS and Android for residents of Turkey. The catalog will include more than 3 thousand titles in Turkish, Russian, Azerbaijani and other languages. According to analysts, investments in the project could amount to 10–20 million rubles. The base audience for the application will be emigrants from the Russian Federation, market participants believe, given the fact that international market leaders are already working in the country.
Liters told Kommersant that they were launching a book service in Turkey. A corresponding mobile application will appear for iOS and Android. The catalog will contain more than 3 thousand titles in Turkish, as well as books in Russian, Azerbaijani and other languages, the service clarified. By the end of the year, the assortment is planned to increase to 10 thousand electronic and audio books: “This will allow Liters to become one of the largest catalogs of digital works in the country.” Contracts have been concluded with 15 national publishers, including Can Yay?nlar?, Notos Kitap, Ithaki Yay?nlar?, Maya Kitap and Alt?n Kitaplar.
The capacity of the digital book market in Turkey in the next three to five years could reach $50–60 million (RUB 4.6 billion) per year, believes Liters CEO Sergei Anuriev: “This is facilitated primarily by the large number of publishing houses represented on the market paper books: there are now more than 200 of them.” He clarified that 30% of sales come from publishers’ websites that are “ready for digitalization.”
In total, foreign sales last year accounted for 23% of Liters’ revenue: “Customers use the application all over the world, even where there is no localized content.”
Turkey became the third foreign market after Azerbaijan (launch in December 2022) and Uzbekistan (July 2023) where Litres entered with localized content.
At the same time, in 2023, the company sold a controlling stake in the Estonian Digital Book Center (EDRK) platform, Vedomosti reported. EDRK specialized in the wholesale trade of e-books in the Baltics. Liters also froze its business in Poland because “local aggregators” of digital books suspended contracts with the service.
Litres LLC is 99.99% owned by Cyprus Litres Holdings Limited and another 0.01% owned by Oleg Evgenievich Novikov. Subsidiaries are Liters Innovations LLC (100%) and Best Book LLC (99.99%). According to SPARK-Interfax, the LLC’s revenue at the end of 2022 amounted to 5.8 million rubles, net profit – 524 thousand rubles. Data for 2023 have not been published. Sergei Anuriev said in February that revenue increased by 17%.
Bookmate (owned by Yandex) and Stroki (part of MTS) refused to comment on possible prospects for expansion abroad and, in particular, to Turkey. Kommersant’s interlocutor on the media market estimates investments in such projects at 10–20 million rubles: “There is no need to rent an office, I believe that management will be carried out from Moscow, and the only thing that will be required is employees who speak Turkish.”
“Ten years ago in Turkey there were problems with digitization; publishers simply did not know how to make e-books at all,” says Vladimir Kharitonov, technical director of the Freedom Letters publishing house.
However, now large international Bookmate (recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation as a foreign agent, left the Russian market in 2022) and Storytel (since October 1, 2022, the application is not available in the Russian Federation) are already operating in the local market, adds Kommersant’s interlocutor in the industry: “The latter developed the market e-books in the country virtually from scratch.” Thus, the former general director of the service, Boris Makarenkov, in an interview with Forbes in 2020, said that 70% of Turkish content is Storytel’s own production.
Liters will have the advantage of having books in Russian, says a top manager of one of the publishing houses: “There are quite a lot of expats in the country, who will become the main initial audience.” According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat), the number of immigrants from Russia in the country in 2022 reached almost 100 thousand people, accounting for a quarter of the immigration flow.
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