How big is the digital comics market? Bigger than you might have thought, it seems:
ComiXology customers have downloaded over 50 million comics since launch, comiXology CEO David Steinberger told ICv2 in a recent interview, with over five million of those coming in December of 2011 alone.
ICv2 also does the math that you were just thinking about after reading that: That 5,000,000+ compares with around 6,400,000 (approx) sales in the direct market as reported by Diamond for the same period. How long before we reach parity between the two, I wonder…?
March 5th, 2012 at 11:04 am
Note: “a significant percentage of the 5 million comics downloaded were free”
I don’t know how much of a percentage is “significant” in this case. Still, if even half of those sales were paid, I’d say that’s pretty impressive, given where the digital market was a year ago.
March 5th, 2012 at 11:28 am
I suspect that a high percentage of those comics were either free or sold in $0.99 sales, so I’m sure that the digital market is a long way from equalling the direct market in terms of generating revenue. Still, that does show that there is significant growth potential in digital comics, regardless of what some skeptics (mostly retailers) would have you believe.
March 5th, 2012 at 11:35 am
I, too, would be interested in knowing the breakdown of the sales. How many of those were free issues? How many of those were cheaper “back catalog” issues? How many were day-and-date issues?
Until day-and-date digital catches up, I’d not call this “parity”.
March 5th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
And, how many of those five million in December were people taking their shiny new toys for test drives, maybe to never download another issue free or paid?
March 5th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
Until publishers start charging reasonable prices for digital content, there won’t be parity. Why on earth would I spend $3.00 for a digital comic book when the print version is just $1.00 more? It’s a terrible deal when compared both to print and other forms of media. Offer me a $15-17 subscription for a year and I’d jump all over it, though. After all, they offer print subscriptions for $25.
March 5th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
That’s funny, cause most of the comics I download are $1, as opposed to the standard print $3. My wife told me to stop buying $3 printed comics when I can download them for $2 (or less), so I stopped as of last month. I have to wait for a month on my DC stuff, but since I used to go through a mail order service I would have to wait that long anyway.
March 5th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
I haven’t purchased a print comic since October and won’t ever go back if digital is an option. I won’t even wait for the trades now, since I can click on my tablet and buy every comic that I want from my living room and read them that day. No mail order. No driving 100 miles to the closest LCS. No finding ways to store more bits of shiny colored paper. All I need is storage space on my sd card and hard drive.
March 5th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
I bet the ComiXology counts free comics. And I bet Diamond doesn’t count Free Comic Book Day…
March 5th, 2012 at 10:52 pm
i’m sorry, until actual itemized numbers are released, nobody knows anything.
March 6th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
I have yet to buy a digital comic at full price. The majority of my digital comics were bought during a 99 cent sale (Y: The Last Man). With the new 52, I’ve bought more single issues than ever before for less than digital (even after the dollar drop). Right now it’s not economical for me to buy day-and-date digital and I still prefer print.
March 6th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
I’ve bought digital at full price (Fatale #1, new issues of Walking Dead). I’ve bought some at $1 off (I, Zombie). And I’ve bought tons during the $0.99 sales, and grabbed many free first issues.
It all depends on the title.
I think it’s ridiculous how long the lag is before the drop to $1.99 for some titles. Months and months.