Russian digital book market reached 14.2 billion roubles in 2023, J’son & Partners estimates

A very serious study of the digital book market in Russia has been published by the leading analytical company J’son & Partners Consulting. This is the first independent assessment of the market, so on the whole it is a landmark event for the entire industry. The figures are very interesting, so let us take a look.

So, in 2023 the digital book market reached a volume of 14.2 billion roubles: 62.7% came from sales of electronic text books, and 37.3% from sales of audiobooks.

The largest player is, predictably, Litres. However, Yandex Plus's book service Bookmate gained 27% of the subscription market in just a year and doubled its audience. Stroki (MTS) accounts for 10%.

It is subscription that the experts name as one of the key drivers of further growth in the capacity of the digital book market, not least through the active involvement of people who currently read only irregularly. In an article in Vedomosti, Yandex's Director for Industry Relations, Ksenia Boletskaya, reports that one can already see how the development of subscription is greatly changing the book market as well: it increases the audience and the regularity of content consumption.