News 14 Jun 2018
Majority of recording sales digital – printed publications hold their own on the book markets
The share of digital recordings in the total euro-denominated wholesale of recordings in Finland rose to close on 83 per cent in 2017. CD sales were only one-tenth of the volume of 2003. The total value of recording sales was nearly EUR 40 million. Sales grew by around 8.5 per cent from the previous year but were only good one-half of the top sum of 2003.
The sales of digital recordings exceeded physical sales for the first time in 2014. In the last few years, among physical recordings only sales of vinyl records has increased. In 2017, their share both in the value of unit sales and wholesale was close to ten per cent.
Dominance of printed books stable, biggest drop in non-fiction sales
On the book markets, physical products, printed books, still dominate. According to the Finnish Book Publishers Association’s statistics, the wholesale value of printed books was around EUR 222 million in 2017 and that of digital publications was close on EUR 35 million.
The total wholesale value of printed books went up by close on three per cent in 2017 from the previous year. The growth for digital publications was more than 46 per cent but it has not shaken the dominance of printed books.
The use of digital publications becoming more common has decreased most the sales of non-fiction: since 2008 the wholesale value of printed non-fiction books has declined by nearly 35 per cent calculated at nominal value. Over the same time, the sales of textbooks for comprehensive schools grew by 28 per cent.
Cultural Statistics table service updated
New updates have been added to Statistics Finland's cultural statistics table service. The tables of the table service are updated four times per year and analysing articles are published in connection with the tables. The tables are in Finnish and English, and the articles in Finnish.
Cultural Statistics’ table service
Table 5.11. Recording markets1999–2017
Table 3.13. Value of book sales by type of literature 1980–2017
Table 3.8. Digital publications 2007–2017: new titles and sales
Further information: Jukka Ekholm +358 29 551 3370, Kaisa Weckström +358 29 551 2348, firstname.lastname@stat.fi