Print circulation in India bucks global trend; grows 4.8% over last decade

India showed a growth on both the circulation front and the number of publications in circulation

According to data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), Indian print publications have seen an increase in average daily circulation of 2.37 crore copies during the 2006-2016 period. From 3.91 crore in 2006, the average number of copies circulated per day grew to 6.28 crore, registering a CAGR of 4.87 per cent. Among the four geographic zones, North shows the highest growth at 7.83 per cent while South, West and East showed growth at 4.95 per cent, 2.81 per cent and 2.63 per cent respectively.

In this regard, India is bucking the international trend where print circulation is on the decline, losing out to digital news consumption. As part of the half yearly data released by ABC for the July-December 2016 period, the circulation audit body quoted the WAN-INRA WPT 2016 Report (an international report on paid print circulation trends) where compared to developed economies like USA, Germany, France, Japan, Australia and UK, India showed 14 per cent, 18 per cent and 12 per cent growth in paid print circulation respectively. The rest of the countries have all shown degrowth in paid print circulation, up to 12 per cent in some cases.

India also bucks the trend in terms of the total number paid dailies in circulation according to the same WAN-INFRA report. While the other countries on the list have shown stagnation in terms of the number of paid dailies in circulation from across 2013, 2014 and 105 (calendar years), India saw the number grow by as many as 2,000 titles.

Speaking at the release of the half yearly report, Shashi Sinha, a board member of the ABC and CEO of IPG Media Brands India explained that there are multiple reasons driving the growth of paid print circulation in India. "Among other things, the growth in literacy and education has created substantial headroom for growth of newspapers. Additionally, they are easily available and are among the cheapest sources of news available to Indians. I think most importantly, the written word still carries more credibility when it comes to India, which a huge positive for print."

The bulk of circulation is dominated by English and vernacular dailies, which account for nearly 5.6 crore of the total circulation in the period under consideration. Hindi language dailies were the highest in circulation at 2.2 crore copies per day on an average followed by English at 85.5 lakh copies, Malayalam (45.5 lakh copies) and Marathi (43.3 lakh copies).

While the penetration of English in the country is improving as are literacy rates, it is important to remember that the literacy is growing in the native/mother language of most individuals and hence the growth of regional dailies and publications is more robust than their English counterparts Sinha added. This can be seen in the fact that Hindi publications grew at 8.76 CAGR from 2006 to 106 while English publications grew at 2.87 per cent. Other language publications to show significant growth include Telugu (8.28 per cent), Kannada (6.4 per cent), Tamil (5.51 per cent) and Malayalam (4.11 per cent).

Among the top ten publications by circulation for the July-December 2016 period, Dainik Jagran topped the list at 39 lakh copies followed by Dainik Bhaskar at 38 lakh copies and Times of India at 31.8 lakh copies. Five out of the top ten publications were Hindi, two Malayalam, and one each in Telugu, English and Tamil.
 

	2006	2016	Increase (absolute)	CAGR over 2006-16 period (%)
Average copies per day (cr)	3.91	6.28	2.37	4.87
Number of publishing  centres	659	910	251	3.28

Source: ABC India 

Circulation growth for paid dailies 

	2013	2014	2015
Australia	2,281 (-10%)	2,008 (12%)	1,879 (-6%)
France	6,537 (-4%)	6,324 (-3%)	6,163 (-3%)
Germany	17,242 (-4%)	16,307 (-5%)	15,786 (-3%)
India	224,338 (14%)	264,290 (18%)	296,303 (12%)
Japan	46,999 (-2%)	45,363 (-3%)	44,247 (-2%)
UK	9,852 (-8%)	9,820 (0%)	8,626 (-12%)
USA	40,712 (-6%)	40,420 (-1%)	39,527 (-2%)

Source: WAN-IFRA WPT 2016 report