India has emerged as the second largest newspaper market in the world by buying 99 million newspapers daily, according to World Association of Newspapers (WAN)?s figures released at the 61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum in G?teborg, Sweden. China leads the pack with highest (107 million) number of dailies sold everyday.
The two most populous countries of the world have also ended up as the two largest newspaper-buying countries. China and India are followed by Japan, with 68 million copies, United States with nearly 51 million and Germany with 21 million copies.
According to WAN, newspaper sales in the Indian market have increased by 11.2% in 2007 and by 35.51% in the last five year period. Asia accounts for around 74 of the 100 best-selling dailies of the world, of which around 62 are published in India, China and Japan.
Although the newspaper advertising revenues in India witnessed a marginal decline of 1.42 last year but is up by 64.8% when you take into account the last five years. According to WAN, paid for newspaper circulations world-wide rose 2.57% in 2007 and increased by 9.39 % over the past five years .
Rapid growth of both free titles and on-line platforms have contributed immensely towards expanding reach of newspapers across countries. When free dailies were added to paid-for daily circulation, global circulation increased by 3.65% year on year to 573 million copies.
The share of newspapers in the world ad market fell marginally to 27.5% in 2007 from 28.7% a year in 2006. Newspapers remain the world?s second largest advertising medium, after television, garnering more ad-revenue than radio, cinema, outdoor, and the internet combined. When newspapers and magazines are combined, print emerges as the world?s largest advertising medium, with a 40% share, compared to 38% of television .
?Newspaper circulation has been rising or remained stable in three-quarters of the world?s countries over the past five years and in nearly 80% of countries in the past year. And even in places where paid-for circulation is declining, notably the US and some countries in western Europe, newspapers continue to extend their reach through a wide variety of free and niche publications,? said Timothy Balding, chief executive officer of WAN.
The number of paid-for newspaper titles increased everywhere except North America, where they were down by 0.56 %. The number of newspaper titles was up by 5.3 % in Asia.