Feature British digital books
Tom Tivnan reports on the latest e-book research from Nielsen/Kantar that shows women dominating the UK e-book market
Women on top
BRITISH WOMEN ARE responsible for the vast majority of e-book sales and their purchases continue to grow at a steeper rate than men’s, according to Nielsen BookScan and Kantar Worldpanel’s full-year analysis of the UK’s e-book market. Nielsen/Kantar’s “Understanding the E-book
Consumer Today”—which combines BookScan’s print data and Kantar’s panel of 15,000 UK consumers aged 13–79—shows that women were responsible for 54.7% of all purchases in Britain’s £154m 2012 e-books market for the 52 weeks to 23rd December 2012. In volume terms, women bought just under
25 million e-book units, 4.5 million copies more than males. Year on year, women’s e-book purchases rose by 144.4%, compared to that of 129.1% for men.
Fiction phenomenon Te gulf is far more pronounced in the fiction sector, with women buying 59.2% of all UK fiction e-books in 2012. Perhaps unsurprisingly given last year’s Fifty Shades phenomenon, women’s fiction dominance was most comprehensively demonstrated in the summer. In the four-week period beginning 8th July, women accounted for 65.6% of all digital fiction purchases. Conversely, men accounted for 57.5% of all
non-fiction e-book purchases in 2012. Yet, fiction accounted for a far greater slice of the pie—just under 65% of all e-book sales, or around £98m. Women had a slighter edge in children’s
e-book sales, accounting for 53.6% of all children’s e-book purchases but sales patterns between both sexes were far more erratic in this category than the fiction and non-fiction sectors. Te greater adoption of digital by women led
to a greater decrease in their print book purchases. Overall, women bought 13.1% fewer print books in 2011, compared to a drop of 12% for men. Overall, e-books became significantly more
popular with consumers in 2012 than 2011, with their share of the total book market (print and digital) rising from 5.8% in 2011 to 14.3% in 2012 in volume sales terms. Te overall book market declined by 7.3% (£156m) year on year in 2012 to just under £2bn. Within that, printed book sales fell by 11.3% (£236m) to £1.85bn but e-books sales increased 106.8% (£79m) to £154m.
thebookseller.com
Source for all graphs: Nielsen/Kantar “Understanding the E-book Consumer Today” March 2013 15 APRIL 2013 | THE BOOKSELLER DAILY AT LBF 13
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