West Siberia’s Tomsk has been recognized as the most well-read city in Russia in 2019.
According to an opinion poll conducted by the ZOOM Market marketing company, Tomsk beat Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg, and even Moscow, the Russian capital, which ranked sixth. The ranking is based on more than 2,500 interviews, in which respondents personally answered questions about what they read and how often.
According to Andrei Shtyrov, commercial director at ZOOM Market, Tomsk topping the list came as a surprise even to the surveyors: they had expected Moscow or St. Petersburg to be on top. In 2018, Yekaterinburg was recognized as the most well-read city; Moscow ranked first in 2017.
The survey has also revealed the genre preferences of Russians. The most popular were detective stories, classics, science fiction and romance novels, as well as business publications. Analysts have also estimated that more than half of Russians, 52%, used e-readers, while over 30% prefer paper versions and 17%, audiobooks.
Vladimir Kharitonov, Executive Director of the Association of Internet Publishers, believes that the book market in Russia is under-researched and not monitored regularly. The expert says e-books are the fastest growing niche in the publishing industry; however, their penetration rate is around 28%, according to the Russian Book Union statistics.
“This segment accounts for 5% of the Russian book market. Our country is up to the global trend although indicators differ greatly from country to country. For example, in Germany, e-books account for 6% to 7% of the market. In the United States, major publishers earn 18% to 19% from electronic books while for smaller publishers and self-publishing authors e-books bring over 50% of profit,” Vladimir Kharitonov commented.
The association director predicts that the segment will continue to grow, even if not as rapidly as in the very beginning but gaining around 40% per year. The audiobook segment is also experiencing a dynamic growth. The market started to form in Russia around three years ago and currently makes up for just under 1% of the book market. Growth of these two segments is due to high availability of content via smartphones.