(At retail prices)
In 2017 the turnover of the free circulation of the book market in Hungary was HUF 47,835,649,000. This means a nominal increase of 2.03% compared to the HUF 46,885,554,000 of 2016.
Since 2014, the nationalization of the public school textbook segment of the market we are not include the turnover of this segment into our statistics, but the few non-nationalized publishers still selling textbooks reported a turnover of about 6 billion from textbooks and language learning books, which we estimate to be about 40% of the total turnover of the public school textbook segment. If we include this in the statistics, then the total turnover of the market in retail prices in 2017 was HUF 53,617,085,000.
The market segment with the biggest turnover in 2016 was popular science books, 29.51% of the market total at HUF 14,114,185,000. This means an increase since the 2016 turnover of HUF13,804,149,000.
The segment of specialist books, scientific books, encyclopaedias, dictionaries and other publications used in higher education in 2017 had a 2.37% increase in turnover. Gross turnover in 2017 was HUF 6,018,655,000 Ft. (In 2016, it was HUF 5,879,350,000.) The segment's total share of the market was 12.58% in 2017.
The gross turnover of belles-lettres and literary fiction in 2017 was HUF 12,631,916,000which is 26.41% of the total turnover with an decrease of 0.94%.(Gross turnover of the segment in 2016 was HUF 12,751,817,000.)
The gross turnover of children's and youth literature - serving as an engine of the Hungarian book market for years now - in 2017 was HUF 14,205,092,000 which is 29.70% of the market. This means an increase of 4.07% compared to the HUF 13,649,923,000 in 2016.
Import of foreign language books (including imported textbooks) has shown a marked decrease. In 2017 this segment was 6.02% of the market, with a gross turnover of HUF 2,878,715,000. (In 2015 it was HUF 4,278,835,000.)
In our questionnaire was have asked for separate data regarding traditional, paper-based books and books published on other media (CD-ROMs, audio books and e-books). The share of this segment in 2017 increased to 1.81% of the total market with a gross turnover of HUF 864,625,000.
In order to compile the statistics of the book market turnover of 2017, we used the statistical data report of 171 Hungarian publishing companies. By our estimate, the turnover of half-price books in 2017 was around HUF 1.000.000.000 and the estimated turnover of those publishers and institutions who only publish a couple of titles a year was around HUF 500,000,000.
Now that the biggest public-school textbook publishers are discounted, the number of those publishers that make an annual turnover above HUF 1 billion is 14. These publishers together produced 47.02% of total turnover of the market. 42 publishers produced 80.14% of the total turnover of the market, and 67 the 90.29% of it.