Between January and June this year, the number of books being sold in Portugal dropped by 312,000 copies – or around 52,000 a month – in comparison to the same period of 2014, according to findings by market research company GfK Portugal.
During the same period, publishers’ revenue dropped by €725,000, to below €61.3 million this year, or €10.2 million a month, from just over €62 million last year.
According to GfK these numbers reflect a trend that has been ongoing in Portugal over the past few years.
In 2014 a total of 12.9 million non-school books were sold, resulting in revenue of around €146 million. Those figures are lower than numbers registered in 2013, when 13 million books were sold, bringing in in the region of €147 million.
Losses were also registered in 2012, when sales and revenue were also both inferior to numbers from the year before.