India is home to world's second-largest English publishing industry:Nielsen study

02nd December 2015
India is home to world's second-largest  English publishing industry:Nielsen study

New Delhi,  December 2, 2015: A first-of-its-kind, study of the India Book Market,  by market research specialist, Nielsen,  pegs the  Indian Publishing sector at  Rs 306.6 billion, making it the sixth biggest publishing market globally. The study titled ‘India Book Market Report 2015’ estimates a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 19.3% for the industry in next five years. The report also highlights that India is the second largest English-language print book publisher in the world.  
The Nielsen  was conducted in association with Association of Publishers in India (API) and the Federation of Indian Publishers (FPI) to evaluate the opportunities and challenges facing the industry, as well as where its future lies.\
Government’s focus on digitization, a growing literacy rate (estimated to reach 90% in 2020), government spend on education along with increasing outsourcing of book publishing services to India are strengths of the Indian publishing industry and will continue to sustain the industry growth.
Further, books have emerged as an instrumental category for e-commerce business, accounting for 15% of the overall e-commerce trade, just trailing behind electronics (34%) and apparel & accessories (30%).
The study revealed that “general and literary fiction” was ranked the #1 genre in the trade books segment while “test prep” was the most sought after genre in Academic books.
Allowance of 100% foreign direct investment in the publishing industry along with various initiatives of the Government in promoting reading habits by strengthening the library movement, organizing book fairs and making subsidized books available are positively impacting the publishing industry. The rising literacy rate and concurrent efforts of the government in reducing school drop-out rate presents publishing industry an immense opportunity to play a direct role in the development of the country through the creation and dissemination of quality educational content.

Digital Opportunity
As digital content becomes mainstream and new channels of marketing open, the manner in which consumers engage with books and reading is continuously changing worldwide. A survey of 2,000 consumers, representative of the urban population aged 18+ during the Nielsen study provides deep insights into changing consumer preference for books in India.
The consumer data survey shows that on average people read books 2.1 times a week while nearly two-thirds read the book occasionally; interestingly, 56% of the respondents bought at least one e-book a year and nearly half of these bought at least 3-4 e-books a year indicating a growing demand for digital books.
Says Vikrant Mathur, Director of Nielsen Book India: “There is enormous potential in the India Book Market which has been highlighted by the report, enabling publishers, booksellers and libraries to gain a deeper understanding of the market, pin-pointing areas that can be developed and those pinch points that need to be addressed in order to bring more efficiency and cost savings to the India Book Market and its supply chain.”
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        Highlights from Nielsen Study:

  • Over 9037 Number of Publishers in the country
  • Over 40000 people directly employed by publishers
  • 21800+ number of organized and unorganized book retailers in India
  • 16 Languages in which organized/semi-organized publishing exists in India[1]
  • Books account for 15% of e-commerce trade in the country
  • 70% of publishers in India have digitized their content to produce e-books
  • School Education (K-12) accounts for  Rs  221.7 billion of the overall Indian books market in 2014-15;
  • Higher Education accounts for  Rs   66.1 billion 
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