News
ICv2 Updates, Revises Market Estimates
posted on by Christopher Macdonald
During Thursday's ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference, ICv2 Editor-in-Chief Milton Grieppe announced it's market size estimates fo the North American graphic novel business (including manga, American graphic novels, humor graphic novels, etc...)
Since 2001, the percentage of graphic novels sold in bookstores has grown from 42.7% to 68.8%. Despite the shrinking percentage of sales through comic book stores, the market has grown for comic book stores, just not as fast as at book stores.
ICv2 announced a correction for previous years, the reason for this is the rapidly growing backlist selection available to retailers. ICv2 believes that it underestimated backlist sales in previous years.
| North American Graphic Novel Market Size | ||||||
| Year | Comic Stores | % change | Bookstores, Others | % change | Total | % change |
| 2001 | $43 | $32 | $75 | |||
| 2002 | $50 | 16% | $60 | 88% | $110 | 47% |
| 2003 | $60 | 20% | $105 | 75% | $165 | 50% |
| 2004 | $67 | 12% | $140 | 33% | $207 | 25% |
| 2005 | $78 | 16% | $167 | 19% | $245 | 18% |
| 2006 | $110 | 41% | $220 | 32% | $330 | 35% |
| All $ figures in $millions at the retail level | ||||||
In addition, libraries make up a futher 10% of the market, bringing the total size of the North American graphic novel market to an estimated $360 million.
The total comic book market size estimate at trade (comic stores and book stores (including online), but not at libraries or other institutional sales) is $565 million for 2005 and $640 million in 2006.
At trade (comic stores and book stores (including online), but not at libraries) the manga sales in 2006 are estimated to have been worth $170 million to $200 million. This is a preliminary estimate that ICv2 will follow-up on later in the year. This figure includes manga graphic novels and manga-peridodicals, although periodicals make up a much smaller percentage of manga sales compared to US. Based on these numbers, manga is worth 26.5% to 37% of the North American comic book market and a higher percentage of the graphic novel market.
