To celebrate World Book Day on Saturday, Amazon China on Thursday released its 2016 Nationwide Reading Survey with Xinhua News Agency.

More than 11,000 people from about 500 cities participated in the survey.

According to the report, more than 80 percent of those surveyed read for at least half an hour every day.

Forty percent of those surveyed each day spend more than an hour reading, up 4 percent year-on-year.

As the penetration rate for digital reading rose for a third year, so did the percentage of e-book readers in the survey. Of the participants who took part in the survey, e-book readers ranked at 84 percent, up 6 percent year-on-year.

Fifty-six percent of the people in the survey believe that the cost of digital reading is small and most of the e-reading devices are handy and easy to carry.

The report also shows that Amazon's Kindle for the first time beat smartphones as the favorite electronic reading device.

Meanwhile, the more expensive an e-book is, the more likely a reader is to finish reading it.

The survey also showed that different groups of people have different reading preferences.

While people born in the 1960's and 00's prefer deep reading, those in the 1980's and 90's prefer shallow reading.

Men's purposes in reading are relatively more practical. Thirty-two percent of them read for career development and knowledge enhancement rather than interests.

In general, compared to men's preference for deep reading, women prefer lighter reading.