Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Hit New 20-Year High

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drew
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Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Hit New 20-Year High

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According to New Estimate by ICv2 and Comichron: http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/3 ... -year-high

The comics and graphic novel market hit another new high for the century in 2014, and a new high since the mid-90s, according to a new joint estimate by Comichron's John Jackson Miller and ICv2's Milton Griepp. Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in the U.S. and Canada reached $935 million in 2014, a 7% increase over sales in 2013.

"It's a very exciting time in the comics business," Griepp said. "The broad range of titles being published, the wide variety of places they're sold, and the great exposure comics are getting from other media are all very positive for the industry."

"The market's in great shape," Miller said. "According to our tracking at Comichron, 2014 was the biggest year for print since 1995, adjusting for inflation; without adjusting for inflation dollar sales hit a mark unseen since 1993. And digital appears to be complementing, rather than cannibalizing, print."

Increases were spread across all three formats. Print grew $55 million to $835 million in 2014, or around 7% more than the $780 million in print sales in 2013. That growth occurred in every channel and format except newsstand sales of periodical comics, which declined from $25 million to $20 million as Marvel withdrew from the market.

Sales of periodical comics through comic stores grew 4%, from $340 million to $355 million. Sales of graphic novels through comic stores grew at a slightly faster pace, from just under $170 million to just over $175 million.

The book channel (bookstores, online, mass) was where the greatest growth was, with graphic novel sales in the book channel up 16%, from $245 to $285 million.

Download-to-own digital sales reached $100 million in 2014, but the growth rate declined to around an 11% increase over 2013's $90 million in sales, compared to a 29% growth rate in 2013, according to estimates released yesterday by ICv2.

So despite a slower growth rate in 2014 than in 2013, the signs of strength were broad, across channels and formats, a positive sign for the industry.

As presented above and in the accompanying infographic, the 2014 analysis by ICv2 and Comichron was divided up between periodical comics (what some call "floppies" or "pamphlets"), graphic novels, and digital download-to-own sales. All print figures are calculated based on the full retail price of books sold into the market, and do not account for discounting or markup. Digital sales do not include subscription or "all you can read" services.

This is the second joint market size analysis from ICv2 and Comichron; the first was last year for 2013 sales.
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clobberin_time_bs
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Re: Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Hit New 20-Year High

Post by clobberin_time_bs »

I'm not familiar with ICv2. Where do they get their numbers (specifically for digital)? Are they based on surveys?
drew
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Re: Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Hit New 20-Year High

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Not sure they have been doing this a long time though
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Re: Comics and Graphic Novel Sales Hit New 20-Year High

Post by JohnMayo »

clobberin_time_bs wrote:I'm not familiar with ICv2. Where do they get their numbers (specifically for digital)? Are they based on surveys?
I'm not sure where they got all of the data for that article but Milton over at ICv2 used to run Capital City (the last competitor of Diamond) and knows his stuff. Likewise, John Jackson Miller at Comichron used to be an editor for Comic Buyers Guide and also really knows his stuff. The data from those two guys can be taken as reliable. Both use the Diamond data as well as other data sources for their analysis.
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