An Upward Trend Shown in China's Book Retail Market, While Accelerated Decline in Physical Bookstores in the First Half of 2019
In July 2019, the report on China’s Book Retail Market in the First Half of 2019 released by Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd reveals the market status and development trends of China’s book retail market in the first half of 2019.
Lei Yang, Deputy General Manager of Beijing OpenBook,released the report on China’s Book Retail Market in the First Half of 2019, during the 29th National Book Expo in Xi’an, Shaanxi, China (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd).
China’s book retail market continues to grow at a 10.82% year-on-year growth rate in the first half of 2019.In the first half of 2019, the book retail market had a year-on-year growth of 10.82%, steadily remaining at double-digit.
China’s book retail market continues to grow at a 10.82% year-on-year growth rate in the first half of 2019.In the first half of 2019, the book retail market had a year-on-year growth of 10.82%, steadily remaining at double-digit.
Market Size and Growth Rate of China’s Book Market in the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
The book retail market is divided into online and physical bookstores. Although the growth rate of online store channels has slowed down, online bookstores continue growing at a high rate of 24.19%. Meanwhile, the physical bookstore continues to show a negative growth trend as in 2018, with a year-on-year decline of 11.72% in the first half of 2019.
Market Size and Growth Rate of China’s Book Market, by sales channels in the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
The year-on-year decline in physical bookstores has accelerated
Looking into the performance of physical bookstores, since 2017, high growth rate has been significantly affected by policy-related readings and thematic publications, which refers to publication focusing on the key work, major conferences, activities and festivals of China. Driven by the holding of the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress in October, batches of related books were sold well and attracted a large number of readers in 2018. The related categories are marxist-leninist, policy-related books, politics, laws and regulations, which drive to high growth of sales in physical bookstores in 2018.
In the first half of 2019, sales of policy-related books and thematic books have declined obviously. In the meantime, there are lacks of new books with high quality to attract readers’ attention. Therefore sales of new books can no longer contribute to the overall growth of physical bookstores. In contrast to the high growth rate from same period of last year, the sales of physical bookstores show obvious negative growth during the first half of 2019.
Growth Rates of Physical Bookstores from 2000 to the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
Online bookstores continues to maintain a high growth rate, overall enjoying a 40% off discount rate
The performance of online bookstore began to rise in 2008, and had been showing a rapid growth trend over time. Although the growth has slowed down in recent years, it maintains a rate above 20%.
It cannot be neglected that discount plays an important role on the growth of online bookstores. OpenBook has started to release discount data of online channels in 2018 and keep much attention to the data in this year. In the first half of 2019, online channels enjoy average discount rate of 40%. The data does not include additional promotional activities, such as double discount, gift-with-purchase, coupons and other activities.
Growth Rates of Online Bookstores from 2015 to the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
New Publications Has Slightly Increased Contribution Rate But Still Require Content Innovation
By looking into the variety of books in the retail market, the total number of new publications was 90,900 in the first half of 2019, which fell by 6.22% compared with the same period last year, further shrinking.
Growth Rates of Physical Bookstores from 2000 to the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
The new books’ contribution rate is an important indicator for publishing efficiency, which is measured by sales of new books to the overall sales of publication of certain period. In recent years, through analysis of new book performance, OpenBook find that the contribution and efficiency of new books continue to decline. No matter defined by sales revenue or unit sold, the contribution rates are getting smaller and smaller.
In terms of sales revenue, the contribution rate of new books increased slightly in the first half of 2019 compared with the same period last year. It is analyzed that the increased in contribution rate is due to the boom sales of top selling books in the first half of 2019.
Contribution Rate of New Books from 2000 to the First Half of 2019 (Source: Beijing OpenBook Co.,Ltd)
According to the main bestseller charts, the influence of new books is declining. In the first half of 2018, two new books entered the top 10 of Non-fiction and Children’s bestseller charts, while no new books entered the top 10 in the first half of this year.
From Top 100 of three bestseller charts (Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children), in the first half of 2018, five new books made it into bestsellers. The contribution of these five new books to the top 100 of the total list was 5.67%. Meanwhile, only three books made it into the top 100 in the first half of this year, with the contribution rate of 4.35%.
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