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Nielsen BookData launches BookScan tracking service in Colombia
Nielsen BookData is expanding its global BookScan sales measurement service to include Colombia, and will officially release data from its Colombia BookScan sales measurement service in February 2023. Historical data will be available from 1st January 2023 onwards.
Colombia joins the growing list of markets served by Nielsen BookScan including Australia, Brazil, India, South Africa and the UK. Nielsen said this latest expansion comes as part of its commitment to measure book sales in Spanish-speaking territories with panels already established in Spain and Mexico and several other LATAM countries including Argentina and Chile in the pipeline.
The new consumer market panel collects point-of-sale data from the EPOS systems of participating supermarkets, department stores, bookstore chains as well as independent booksellers in Colombia. Currently the panel represents 70% market coverage, but the aim will be to increase that share for increased accuracy over time. Established territories such as the UK and Australia boast 90% market share.
Although work began on BookScan Colombia in 2019, the project was put on hold during the height of the pandemic. The first test bestseller list was compiled towards the end of 2021 and throughout 2022 monthly bestseller lists and core market figures were fine-tuned accumulating in an end of year Top 20.
Emiro Aristizábal, executive president at Colombian Book Chamber (CCL), commented: “This new service, essential for publishers and bookstores, is the result of a collaboration between the Colombian Book Chamber and Nielsen BookData. We have worked shoulder to shoulder to provide this new service to book-related companies in Colombia.”
Andrés Ossa, director of Cerlalc, added: "One of the major weaknesses of the Latin-American publishing industries is the lack of systematic data on production and sales. Nowadays, data is a must for any industry, and book publishing should no longer consider itself an exception. Although there is a lot of intuition in this field, decision-making on a more accurate basis will contribute to strengthening the Latin-American publishing sectors.”
David Peman, territory manager at Nielsen BookData, said: “We are delighted to be able to provide objective market data practically in real time to booksellers, distributors and publishers for them to use to inform and make better business decisions. I would like to personally thank the CCL for their dedicated support and all the bookshops who put their faith in us.”
El club de las 5 de la mañana by Robin Sharma (Grijalbo) was the bestselling title in Colombia in 2022, followed by Leer es resistir by Mario Mendoza (Planeta) and Violeta by Isabel Allende (Plaza & Janés).
