German bricks-and-mortar booksellers gain market share in 2014; 2.2% drop in overall sales

The German book trade association Börsenverein has released figures on the performance of the German book market in 2014, reporting a 2.2% fall in overall sales to €9.32bn (A$13.63bn). The Börsenverein has attributed this drop to a lack of bestsellers, with the top 10 bestsellers generating 20.2% less turnover in 2014. For the second year in a row, bricks-and-mortar booksellers performed better than their online competitors, with Börsenverein chairman Heinrich Riethmüller attributing this to ‘targeted marketing, a strong customer-based focus on activities and the expansion of their own online business both with print titles and e-books’. Bricks-and-mortar booksellers recorded €4.58bn (A$6.70bn) in sales in 2014, down 1.2% on the previous year; online booksellers recorded €1.51bn (A$2.21bn), down 3.1%; mail-order bookstores dropped by 26% to €161m (A$235m); and publishers’ direct sales increased by 1.5% to €1.9bn (A$2.78bn). In 2014, the number of new titles released by Germany publishers dropped from 81,919 to 73,863, while new translation titles dropped from 10,731 to 9962. Ebook sales (excluding academic titles) increased 7.6% in value and 15% in volume, and currently represent 4.3% of the market in value. Ebook sales were dominated by fiction (84%), while children’s and YA books dropped from 7% to 5%. Börsenverein managing director Alexander Skipis described the German book market as ‘generally stable’. ‘We are eager to maintain and expand this state of affairs. However, we fear that monopolistic companies like Amazon will continue to play out their dominance and abuse their market strength even further,’ said Skipis, who urged the EU Commission to ‘set up an effective monitoring of market strength and influence—one that is appropriate to the digital era’.

Category: International news