Shanda's riveting new chapter

• Published 28 May 2009

Shanda's literature arm has stormed the online reading market by allowing amateur writers to publish novels on its website and charge its members to read them.

Reading online is the new black among China's book worms. As computers and mobile phones, especially smartphones with digital displays increasingly become part of Chinese urbanites' daily lives, major internet companies such as Shanda (SNDA:Nasdaq) Tencent (0700:HKG), Sohu (SOHU:Nasdaq) and more recently Netease (NTES:Nasdaq) have joined the fray in offering online portals for reading best-selling novels. Shanda's online reading subsidiary – Shanda Literature, however, seems to be taking the market by storm.

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