The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Random homes in on Hachette's lead

11.07.08 Graeme Neill

Random House Group's market share has crept to within 0.2% of market leader Hachette Livre UK in the first six months of 2008, according to their own estimates, driven by bestsellers from authors including Delia Smith and Ian McEwan.

Hachette held onto its position on top of the UK's publishing league by a whisker, taking a flat 15.3% share of the market for the first 24 weeks of 2008 with £105.9m worth of books sold, according to Nielsen BookScan data. Its sales were up 1.4% compared to the same period last year, boosted by titles including Patricia Cornwell's Book of the Dead and Penny Vincenzi's An Absolute Scandal.

C.e.o. Tim Hely Hutchinson said Hachette had an "excellent" first half. "We had 15 Sunday Times number one bestsellers and our books have accounted for 25% of the slots in the lists published in the Sunday Times in the first half of the year," he said.

According to BookScan, RHG sales grew 10.3% to £98.7m, earning a market share of 14.2%. However, this data does not include sales generated from their BBC titles. RHG's own data record s a year-on-year increase of 9.2% to £104.5m, boosting its market share to 15.1%. Chair and c.e.o. Gail Rebuck said she was "delighted" with the publisher's performance. "Two titles stood out—How to Cheat by Delia Smith and On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan in paperback—but aside from that James Patterson's 7th Heaven exceeded expectations."

The bestselling title for the year to 14th June was Bloomsbury's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which shifted 483,435 copies and helped Bloomsbury leapfrog Pearson Education to move into sixth position. Its market share increased to 2.5% from 2% last year, as Pearson's fell to 1.9% from 2.1% last year.

Further changes within the top 10 saw John Wiley enter the fray in ninth position, ousting Egmont and moving Simon & Schuster down one place into 10th.

Penguin, HarperCollins and Pan Macmillan retain their respective third, fourth and fifth places in the top 10, with OUP still in eighth. If sales for Faber's Independent Alliance of publishers are taken together, the group would sit in -seventh position overall with sales of £14.8m over the period and a market share of 2.1%. Overall, UK book sales for the period were worth £693.1m, up from £664.4m last year.

UK market: First half of 2008
Pos Publishing group Sales Share 2008
1 Hachette Livre UK £105,912,663 15.3%
(2 Random House £104,515,833 15.1% - Random House's own estimates)
2 Random House* £98,711,354 14.2%
3 Penguin £68,827,003 9.9%
4 HarperCollins £56,790,193 8.2%
5 Pan Macmillan £23,543,369 3.4%
6 Bloomsbury £17,316,123 2.5%
7 Pearson Education £13,023,242 1.9%
8 OUP £12,770,894 1.8%
9 John Wiley £11,900,951 1.7%
10 Simon & Schuster £11,195,056 1.6%
Sales through Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market for the 24 weeks ending 14th June 2008. *Does not include 'BBC Grp' data.

 

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