I found this poll saying 30% of French citizens doesn't read any books, and close to two-thirds reads less than five a year (I'm guessing the aforementioned 30% is included in that... otherwise it'd be fairly extreme). Another article says that 86% of Argentines reads five books or less per year. For Spain, the best I found was numbers for Catalonian children and young adults (as reported by themselves and/or their parents, so not sure how reliable that is), with 30% saying 3 or less, 35% saying 3 to 6, and 25% more than six.

I really don't think that's the cause, though. It's just a matter of what you're used to, is all. I certainly agree with Larry that books in the US are cheaper than here, and I would suspect the size of the market has a lot to do with that - makes for bigger print runs, and hence the editor doesn't have to make as much profit per copy sold. And if even paperbacks are more expensive here than in the US, then the price for hardcovers would be even steeper, so makes sense that hardcovers often aren't even released, then. (And that Germany does have them - the German market is the largest in Europe, after all, what with covering Austria and half of Switzerland in addition to Germany).