(At retail prices)
In 2010, book sales amounted to 61,571,635,000 HUF.
(Registered book sales in 2009 amounted to 64,172,773,000 HUF, which means a decrease of 4.05 %. The official inflation rate published by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office was 4.9 % in 2010, thus book sales actually decreased by 9 %.)
Sales achieved by the 181 publishers supplying data in 2010 totalled 56,103,705,000 HUF or 91.12 % of all book sales.
Sales achieved with imported books in 2010 amounted to 4,067,980,000 HUF.
Estimated sales of small enterprises and institutions only publishing a few titles amounted to 600,000,000 HUF.
According to our estimate, sales of 800,000,000 HUF were achieved with half-price and discount books.
Book sales by categories
1. Sales of public education textbooks and language textbooks decreased by slightly more than 2 % in 2010, totalling 16,605,301,000 HUF or 26.97 % of all book sales. (In 2009, sales in this segment amounted to 16,963,770,000 HUF of all sales.)
2. The position of popular science books remained essentially the same in 2010 as in 2009. Sales merely decreased by 0.7 % and totalled 14,783,590,000 HUF or 24.01 % of all book sales. (In 2009, sales of popular science books totalled 14,890,287,000 HUF or 23.2 % of all book sales.)
3. Sales of belles-lettres or fiction titles slightly decreased as compared to the preceding year. The market share of this segment of 20.57 % is an exceptionally strong one in international comparison. Sales achieved in this segment amounted to 12,668,230,000 HUF in 2010. (In 2009, fiction titles achieved sales of 12,889,077,000 HUF or 20.08 % of all book sales.)
4. Sales of specialist books, scientific books, encyclopaedias, dictionaries and other publications used in higher education decreased by more than 15 %, by exactly 15.26 %. This means that as a result of the dramatic loss of market continuing since the beginning of the millennium sales of publications indispensable in secondary and higher education as well as self-instruction have practically halved! In 2010, sales in this segment decreased to 5,334,282,000 HUF or 8.66 % of all book sales. (In the preceding year, sales amounted to 6,294,671,000 HUF or 9.8 % of all book sales.)
5. Last year's great loser was the segment of books for children and young people, as sales were 16.65 % less than in the preceding year. Sales achieved in this segment amounted to 12.4 % of all book sales with a total of 7,633,134,000 HUF. (In 2009, customers spent 9,157,576,000 HUF on books of this category, which meant 14.3 % of all book sales.)
The statistical questionnaire developed a decade and a half ago treats the market for CDs, CD-ROMs and audio books, an even newer category, as a single segment - that was completed by digital books that have become more and more popular in recent years. Within the segment, different trends can be observed: Sales of audio books continued to decrease last year, from 184,707,000 HUF in 2009 to 147,450,000 HUF in 2010. The market share of CDs and CD-ROMs decreased even more strongly, by more than 30 %. At the same time, the market share of content and royalty-free databases supplied on electronic data carriers or online has continued to grow in 2010. Sales of non-paper-based books, i.e. those published on some other kind of data carrier, amounted to 4,547,098,000 HUF, after having totalled 3,977,392,000 HUF in 2009. This represents an increase in this segment of 14.32 %, to 7.39 % of total book sales.
Sales of imported books also decreased by 5.57 %. Imported books in foreign languages achieved sales of 4,067,980,000,000 HUF or 6.61 % of total book sales in 2010. (The figure for 2009 is 4,308,000,000 HUF or 6.7 %.)
The market for half-price books accounted for 1.30 % of all book sales in 2010.
Concentration in the publishing sector continued in 2010:
In 2010, 15 enterprises produced 59.72 % of publishers' total sales;
the 34 market-leading publishers produced 74.98 % of all book sales;
the 52 market-leading publishers produced 82.27 % of all book sales;
the 181 publishers supplying data produced 91.12 % of all book sales.
The market position of foreign-owned publishers operating in Hungary has worsened significantly. In 2010, they achieved sales amounting to 14,956,164,000 HUF or 24.29 % of all book sales. (In 2009, their market share was 30.9 % with sales totalling 19,830,554,000 HUF.)