Canadian single copy sales said to be 13% of total North American market

Recent figures from Coast to Coast Distribution suggests that Canadian share of the North American single copy magazine market is about 13%. This is a number that has, to our knowledge, not been published before (and may be surprisingly higher than expected).

In a letter sent to publishers, Coast to Coast Distribution Services President and CEO Glenn Morgan says that sales were essentially flat in both Canada and the U.S. in the first half of 2007, compared with the same period in 2006. (It follows up on CTC's recent publication of unit sales and revenue figures for 96%* of Canadian single copy sales -- a useful and previously hard-to-get compilation.)

Total North American sales in the first half of 2007 totalled $2.39 billion, on 640 million copies. This represented a 0.5% decrease from the same period a year earlier; however there was a significant increase in overall newsstand sell-thru, a 38.4% efficiency, compared to 36.1% for the same period a year earlier.

Total U.S. sales in the first half were $2.08 billion and total Canadian sales were $310.1 million for the first six months. The Canadian figures were a "minuscule" decline of 0.1% compared with the same period a year earlier. Sell-thru and efficiency figures were not available for Canada, said Morgan.

*The compilation did not include data from one Quebec-based distributor of French-language titles.