Liu and Wang Bangjiang, the 37-year-old head of the company's e-reader operation, regularly fly off to visit prospects that can set up a local online bookstore, sell the e-books and market the devices.
Hitting that target depends on lining up lots of foreign partners. Hanwang hopes to sell 300,000 e-readers abroad this year-up from 35,000 last year-and eventually collect 40% of its revenue from outside China. The goal is not only to keep its edge in China but also to expand overseas, where it's called Hanvon. "Our research has shown that e-readers will be used for many things." That includes storing complex equations and maps, and listening to music. "The Kindle and Sony Reader are just tools to read," he says. While not taking pleasure readers for granted, Liu has his staff looking into the specific needs of academia, business and the military.
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Indeed, Liu knows he won't dominate the Chinese market forever, so he pushes his engineers and software developers to find more and more uses for Hanwang's e-readers beyond just recreational reading. Has just delayed the international launch of its iPad. Kindles and Sony Readers don't have Chinese-language versions yet, and Of course, Hanwang's success has been somewhat artificial. The stock has quadrupled, and the 36.4% stake held by Liu and his wife, Xu Dongqing, is now worth $940 million. That's a recipe for going public: In March it raised $161 million when it listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Revenue is expected to rise 150% this year, to $208.6 million, and profits to nearly double, to $22.8 million. Hanwang's sales and profits are also soaring. It launched its first e-reader only in July 2008 and pulled off an immediate coup when one of its e-readers was the first to be used in space: In September 2008 the Shenzhou VII astronauts brought along a Hanwang device loaded with 100,000 messages of good luck from the people of China. And after selling 200,000 e-readers in the first quarter, it's on track to top 1 million for the year. But it dominates the fast-growing Chinese market with an 85% to 90% share, say analysts. Hanwang is too far behind for that to happen this year-it sold 300,000 e-readers last year while Amazon sold between 1 million and 2 million of its Kindles.