Children's sales up 15% in China

The children's market in China is up 15% by value in 2016 so far, according to data from Open Book, China's book sales data company, divulged last week at the Shanghai International Children's Book Fair.

The latest surge has seen the children's segment grow to 23% of the overall market (from 22% in 2015).

Open Book has previously reported rises of 13% (11 months to November 2015) and 20% (for the year 2014).

The total sales value for the children's market in 2015 was calculated at 13bn RMB (£1.52bn). Open Book calculates total market value by the list price of books multiplied by volume sales, without allowing for the effects of discounting.

Yang Lei, deputy general manager of Open Book, said children's fiction has been particularly strong this year, up a hefty 40% from 2015, with strong performances from picture books and popular science.

The highest selling individual titles so far this year have been of Chinese origin, he said: the latest episodes of Lei Ou Huang Xiang's magical fantasy series Charlie IX DoDoMo, at number one, and Yang Hongying's animal series The Diary of a Smiling Cat, at number two. However editions of Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, illustrated by Anita Jeram, Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince and Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox make up the rest of the top five bestsellers.

The Chinese edition of J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, released at the very end of September, has sold just over 28,500 copies thus far via Open Book's direct data, which covers around 40% of the market. Therefore Open Book calculates the actual total sold at between two and three times that number.

Open Book takes its data from around 270 physical bookstores and the online sales of etailers JD.com and T-Mall.com, calculating total market value by extrapolating out from that data (40% of the total).

Harry Potter display at bookshop Shanghai Book City in Shanghai, China