Rise in Popularity

The most dramatic growths in eBooks sales and usage happened in the first decade of the 21st century when three series of events combined:

Companies such as Sony, Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble began to sell effective and reasonably priced eBook readers

Widely available internet broadband, wireless and high-speed mobile telecommunication systems allowed quick downloads from online eBook stores, or the ability to read eBooks on 'the cloud'

Mobile devices such as smart phones, pads, tablets, laptops etc. are in very wide usage, allowing easy access and readability to eBooks

This quickly led to book publishers making their products available in eBook format at a reasonable cost.

By mid 2010, Amazon's eBook sales began to outnumber its sales of hardcover books and by May 2011 Amazon's eBook sales had outnumbered all its print version format book sales.

eBooks had truly arrived.

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