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Viz VP States Company Has Done 'Extraordinarily Well' During COVID-19

The Vice President Publishing Sales at Viz Media, Kevin Hamric, stated in an interview with ICv2 published on Friday that Viz Media has been doing "extraordinarily well" during the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Hamric did not give any sales figures, but said that sales were "beyond expectations."

Hamric noted that sales of Shonen Jump titles have been high during this time and that Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia manga series has been leading sales. Tatsuya Endō's SPY x FAMILY manga series has had high sales amongst recent releases.

Hamric revealed that the staff at Viz Media initially discussed revising their revenue budget, goals, and publication schedule when the COVID-19 pandemic began, but did not end up implementing any discussed changes. During the time in which physical stores were closed, Viz observed an increase in online sales on websites such as Amazon, BN.com, BAM.com, and Right Stuf. Hamric also mentioned that the company's sales of manga box-sets increased during this time.

Hamric noted that Viz Media's sales of the first volumes increased during the pandemic. He addressed this pattern:

I had that fear going in with the stores closing. How are people going to discover new series? In-store shopping is quite a big part of that. That played out because our backlist sales are extremely strong. We flipped those, our backlist to frontlist sales during this period.

People are either getting into a new series that they had heard of before, or their friends recommended, or they've had great reviews online, or something they've always wanted to start getting into.

The Vice President Publishing Sales also noted that the manga market has been strong during this period in general.

(Image Source: ICv2)

Source: ICv2 (Milton Griepp)