GfK: "e-Reader is not displaced by the tablet - Book Journal (subscription)

Last Thursday gave consultants Miriam Hemker and Cary Richards of the GAU GfK Marketing Meeting an overview of the state of affairs in the book

Physical Book & Market

Netherlands is now four consecutive quarters in recession and it looks unlikely that this will change shortly. Consumer confidence is always low and therefore save Dutch prefer to buy.

their money or repay their mortgage instead of books, music, games and DVDs

This is reflected in the figures. Until August this year, sales fell from paper books compared to the same period in 2012 by 4.7% (YTD 321.8 million). The physical music, DVD and game market declined by double digits YTD. For the books it seems to fall, the decline but appearances are deceptive: the sales decreased by 9.3% over the period compared to 2012. So there are nearly ten percent fewer books over the counter gone! The higher average selling prices of books will ensure that revenue fell less than sales.

The book market in the Netherlands is doing in comparison with neighboring countries not good. Spain performs worse, but Switzerland (+3.3%), Germany (+1.5%), Flanders (+1.2%), Austria (+0.8%) do better. This is partly because in the Netherlands participation in digital reading is higher and they do not always pay for the e-books.

Split genres to see sales decline like this: fiction (43% vd market) shows a view of 4.7%, min nonfiction leisure (20% vd market) down 10 , 2% and non-fiction information (23% vd market) fell by 2.3%. Only the children’s books pluses.

Contrary to popular belief makes the top 20 best-selling books a much smaller share of the market. Compared to the whole box does the top-20 5.2% of sales and 7.8% of the value. The top 20 titles sold in numbers so far 14% less than last year, but sales they delivered 5.5% more. Reason: a higher average selling price of the bestsellers.

Tablets, e-readers and e-books

The e-reader market is growing by 36% in 2013. So far in the Netherlands in all years together 925 thousand e-readers sold. GfK expects will be available. Throughout 2013 250 thousand e-readers sold This would more than one million e-readers in circulation by the end of 2013.

When it comes to tablets then there YTD July 2013 4.1 million copies in circulation in the Netherlands. The expectation is that GfK recover throughout 2013 1.8 million pieces. Its users of e-readers really dedicated readers, with the tablet, the number of people who read this book right away. In 2012, 40% of the tablet to read, that percentage dropped to 23% in 2013. 91% use the tablet to surf and social media, 30% looks on TV, 30% uses it for movies and games at 21% does.

The share of e-books in the total market is YTD July 2013 grew to 4.5%. That was up 2.9% over the same period in 2012. YTD July 2013, there were 988,000 pieces ebooks sold. 83% of it was fiction, non-fiction 12%, 5% children’s books. When fiction is now 9.7% of sales an e-book. Or: if fiction is now 1 in 10 books sold an e-book

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A sad figure: average is paid on a e-reader/tablet for 12% of the books. Converted to all e-books sold and e-readers/tablets’s on every e-reader/tablet 1.6 lawful bought e-book.

There is some good news: the e-reader is not displaced by the tablet, it is expected GfK. Users of e-readers are frequent readers. Conversely, it goes on: For frequent readers of the e-reader is the most common platform. So there’s an opportunity for booksellers and publishers.

Expectations

In the period 2010-2014, the market for paper books A decrease by 170 million euros, which is a quarter of the market. Until the end of 2013, the A-book market fell by 107 million euros. Sales in the music will stabilize in 2014 by streaming. The music is in 7 years time two thirds of the market evaporates.

Conclusion of GfK is that the industry has not yet exploited the potential of the digital market. Opinion of GfK: learn from the music industry, there were alternative offer late models available

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