Brazil’s book market saw 2017 lift

Brazil's book market saw real growth of 3.1% last year, according to Brazilian book trade publication PublishNews.  

The figure is calculated via the 6.15% increase in sales measured by Nielsen BookScan, to a total of R$ 1.7bn (£373m), minus the annual inflation figure, which the IPCA Index puts at close to 3%. BookScan, which covers around 65% of the Brazil market, puts unit sales at 43.3 million for the year, a rise of 4.6%.

The book market’s positive performance reflects a small recovery in Brazil’s economy as a whole, with the Central Bank’s Focus Report predicting that final GNP figures for 2017 will show a welcome growth figure, though of modest proportions at 1%.     

PublishNews notes however that publishers suffered in 2017 from delayed payments from important Brazilian booksellers such as Saraiva and Cultura, affecting both cash-flow and morale.

Despite the ongoing political crisis enveloping the country, government textbook orders rose nearly 50% on 2016’s figure to a total of R$1.6m (£351,200) – although these orders might be partially invoiced in the following year. However the programme that acquired trade books for school libraries (PNBE) has been cancelled.

The first digital census of Brazil was carried out in 2017, showing that only 1.1% of all book publishers' revenues were digital; however for the top four trade publishing houses the figure is 4.5% while 63% of Brazilian publishers had no digital revenues at all.

The acquisition of Brazilian aggregator DLD by German digital services provider Bookwire in September, just as another important aggregator Xeriph also announced it was closing its operations, gave Bookwire “a very comfortable position and control of over 80% of the Brazilian traditional e-book market,” noted PublishNews. The publication quoted Bookwire’s country manager in Brazil, Marcelo Gioia, as saying the combined revenues of DLD and Bookwire grew 64% last year, demonstrating the digital potential in the country.