HANGZHOU, April 13 (Xinhua) -- The value of China's digital publication market was 15.2 billion yuan (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) last year, up 26.7 percent year on year, according to a report published on Friday by China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association.

Some 378 million Chinese read digital publications in 2017, up 13.4 percent. Among them, 27.3 percent were middle-aged, and 1.2 percent were elderly, according to the report.

The report showed that the number of e-book writers in China reached 7.8 million last year, up 30.2 percent.

Meanwhile, last year, Chinese read an average of 10.1 e-books and 7.5 print books per person, it added.

Sha Yuejia, vice president of the country's leading telecom operator China Mobile, said that more than 65 percent of the users of Migu, an online reading platform and subsidiary of the company, used the 4G network to read e-books.

The 5G era is expected to further boost the development of the digital publication industry, said Sha.

Artificial intelligence and virtual reality technology will be used in digital publications in the future to upgrade the reading experience, Sha added.