German eBook Market Faces Sales Decline Amid Rising Prices

Since the launch of the Tolino alliance, it has been clear that eBooks have secured a solid place in the German book market. A look at the development of the first quarter of 2019 confirms this.

Compared to the same period last year, the eBook revenue share of 5.7 percent of the total book market has not changed. However, a closer look at other figures shows that there is still a slight decline to note.

Infographic on the development

The number of eBook buyers has decreased by 5.9 percent, which has also resulted in a sales decline of 7.1 percent. On an estimate, there were “only” 1.9 million eBook buyers (previously: 2.1 million). On average, they purchased 1.3 percent fewer eBooks.

In terms of revenue, the decline of 1.4 percent looks less dramatic than in sales. This is thanks to the increased average price: eBooks cost 6.1 percent more than in the first quarter of 2018.

One reason for the decline could be that Easter did not fall in the first quarter this year. Therefore, the comparison to the previous year isn’t entirely fair. The unchanged revenue share also indicates that the overall book market suffered somewhat from the absence of the Easter holidays in the first quarter.

Thus, it will be interesting to see how revenues will develop in the second quarter. As early as 2017, the first two quarters seemed to offer a bleak outlook for the further development of the eBook market. However, in 2018, things looked quite different: Sales and revenues increased by 12.7 and 9.3 percent respectively, and the revenue share of the total book market grew from 4.6 to 5 percent.