Friday, July 17, 2015

BPN 1710: Dutch e-books growing in Q2 2015, partly because of subscriptions

Press release CB
June, 17, 2015

The Dutch logistic company CB published its latest figures on e-books in the Dutch language (Q2 2015). It reveals that the number of sales increased by 25% compared to the same period in the previous year. Both the share of e-books in the total book sales and the share of e-books in online sales rose slightly (compared to the previous quarter).

New is the sale of e-books through so-called subscriptions. Subscriptions take in the second quarter of 2015 38% of total e-book sales on their behalf.

E-books by subscription
In addition to e-book sales and loans through the public library system Bibliotheek.nl, a new variant arrived: read e-books via a subscription. Through subscription services consumers pay a fixed monthly fee for a ‘unlimited’ amount of books.

Retail price
For the first time CB has analysed the average recommended retail prices for e-books in relation to the average price of the physical book. The price of an e-book was on average 83.6% of a physical book in 2010, but in 2015 it is 59.5%, downing the prices of e-book with 36% since 2010.

Download the e-book Barometer (Q2 2015) in pdf