Print media is dying. According to the recent State of the News Media 2015 report, newspaper circulation is the lowest it has been in four years and newspaper revenue has dropped to $16.4 billion, the ninth straight year of decline.
Most publications have turned to the digital world as a savior because digital customers have overtaken those who subscribe to print products. Newspaper ad revenue has declined every year since 2005, falling from $47.4 billion to $16.4 billion in 2014.
Newspaper ad revenue from digital and print
Source: journalism.org
While digital newspaper ad revenue growth remains stagnant, the digital publishing market as a whole continues to grow. Technavio expects the global digital publishing market to reach $33.43 billion in 2019, an increase of almost $7 billion from 2014.
The growth of the market is driven by a rise in the number of knowledge workers. In addition, there has been increased importance on the proper utilization of information and data in decision making across all industries. The market is shifting from mere publishing to the provision of business information. The market is shifting from mere publishing to the provision of business information.
Growth in non-english publications
The market is flourishing in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region as increased R&D spending and research output has enabled China, which accounts for 20% of global research output, to overtake the UK in scientific and technical publishing. The number of researchers in the APAC is growing approximately 10% annually in emerging countries.
According to the Royal Society (UK National Academy of Science), there were nine million researchers worldwide in 2014. The number is growing by 4% every year. The majority of this growth comes from emerging countries, which have an annual growth rate of 9%-12%. In 2014, the US grew by only 1% annually, indicating that the market is mature. South Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan are home to more than one-third of the world’s researchers. This has led to a rise in non-English publications.
China had the highest growth in research output during 2011-2015. The majority of scientific and technical articles published in China are non-English. On the other hand, the US, which accounts for the majority of the world’s English publications, is declining. The EU, another region that accounts for a sizeable share of English publications, is also showing a decline. Asia-8 and Asia-10 are regions where the majority of articles published are in a language other than English. These regions are the emerging markets that have a high growth potential. Over the past two decades, Asia-10 has grown the most in the publication market. Vendors can capitalize on this trend by developing services that cater to their language needs.
