In the first nine months of the year, compared to 2024, 1.9 million fewer copies were sold out of a total of 68 million (-2.7%) equal to a lower expenditure of €20.7 million out of a total of €995.3 million in sales (-2%). Voucher purchases for new 18-year-olds, on the other hand, dropped from €97.5 million in 2023 to €66.6 million in 2024 and €39.5 million in 2025, a loss of €58 million in two years: net of these purchases, market dynamics between 2023 and 2024 and between 2024 and 2025 would be positive. Moreover, since July, the monthly trend has returned to positive ground, although it has not recovered the decline accumulated in the first six months.
Italian fiction (plus 3 percent), foreign fiction (plus 0.1 percent) and children's and young adult books (plus 3.9 percent) grew. All other genres are down: general non-fiction (minus 3.3 percent), practical manuals and self help (minus 4.7 percent), comic books (minus 5 percent), and specialized non-fiction (minus 10.9 percent).
In sales channels, physical bookstores are still growing, which now have a market share in the nine months of 55.5 percent, while online stores decline to 40.2 percent and supermarkets to 4.4 percent.
The analysis and reworking was carried out by the AIE research department, while the source of sales data in trade channels is NielsenIQ BookData Panel Market Libri Italia.
The survey is in italian.