ICv2 have released some figures about comic sales over the last few years – including digital sales!
I think there is some interesting reading there.
I recently looked at the figures for 2000AD print sales and digital sales as supplied to me and made the comment that digital doesn’t seem to be hurting print. Now there is more evidence to look at.
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Comic Market in the Digital Age (North America, sales in millions) |
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|
GNs |
Comics |
Total Print |
Digital |
Grand Total |
|
|
2009 |
$370 |
$310 |
$680 |
$1 |
$681 |
|
2010 |
$350 |
$295 |
$635 |
$8 |
$643 |
|
2011 |
$340 |
$300 |
$640 |
$25 |
$665 |
|
2012 |
$335 |
$345 |
$680 |
$70 |
$750 |
|
© 2013 ICv2 |
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Obviously these are only US figures, but as the biggest market, it gives us a good look at the markets health.
What we can see from the above table is that although print has dipped and then returned over the last few years – digital has increased its sales since 2009. From $1 million to $70 million – in all the while print comics seem to remain unaffected – in fact they have reached a 4-year high in sales while digital is also increasing.
What we can’t tell from these figures is how many new readers there are – are people buying print and digital? I doubt it, but perhaps the digital medium is allowing people to buy more variety, with more publishers being able to access markets worldwide?
What does seem obvious is that digital comics are not adversely affecting print comics as they both seem to be on the up!
