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Quercus, Penguin and Simon & Schuster had record years through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM) in 2010, bucking the downward trend of the entire UK books market. The gains, revealed in The Bookseller’s exclusive annual round-up of publisher performance and market share, come against a background of an overall contraction of the TCM, which fell 3% by value last year to £1.695m.
Stieg Larsson’s publisher Quercus saw its TCM revenue rise by 100% year on year to £23.3m, of which £18.6m (78%) was generated by the late Swede. It was Quercus’ second straight year of triple-digit growth, and the largest ever increase through the TCM by a publisher with revenue of £10m or above. Quercus’ performance helped the Independent Alliance score its fifth straight year of double-digit growth, up 14%.
Penguin was the only one of the top four publishing groups, which collectively account for 47.6% of the UK market, to have positive year-on-year growth. It rose 14% to £195.1m, increasing its market share from 10% in 2009 to 11.5%. The Penguin division, excluding Dorling Kindersley and Rough Guides, at £163.3m had its biggest year since TCM records began.
Penguin was still 9% up if the £15.6m sales of Jamie Oliver’s record-breaking Jamie’s 30-minute Meals (Michael Joseph) were stripped out. Tom Weldon, Penguin UK c.e.o., called it a "testament to the breadth and depth of the rest of our publishing".
Hachette remains the UK’s top publisher, but slipped 11% by value and saw its market share dip 1.3% to 15.2%. Second-placed Random House was 2% down, but closed the market share gap on Hachette slightly, moving up 0.1% to 13.8%. Harper-Collins slid 14% and, at £120.9m, had its worst year ever through the TCM.
Simon & Schuster rose 14% year on year to £31.1m its best ever TCM total, leapfrogging Pearson to eighth place on the top publisher list. Pan Macmillan, rising 6% to £60.9m, was the only other top 10 publisher to see positive growth through the TCM.