German book sales surge as Phönix goes top

The leading booksellers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland enjoyed a stellar year 2000, with growth exceeding even the most optimistic expectations.

According to a survey compiled by trade magazine Buchreport, the largest 100 booksellers more than doubled the 5.6% sales growth achieved in 1999. Between them they managed a record increase of 12.2% to DM4.7bn (£1.5bn). The book trade as a whole had to content itself with an increase of 0.8%.

The second big surprise in Buchreport's annual survey is that Germany's up-and-coming bookselling chain Universitätsbuchhandlung Phönix has overtaken arch-rival Hugendubel to become the new number one bookseller in the German-speaking world. Including Stauffacher and Jäggi, its two recent acquisitions in Switzerland, the 58 Phönix branches recorded a sales rise of 58.3% to DM382.6m (£121m).

Former market leader Hugendubel had to settle with second place even though the Munich-based company had a strong year, with sales up 11.4% to DM367m (£116.5m). However, owner Heinrich Hugendubel can console himself that, strictly speaking, his chain is still number one: the Buchreport survey does not take into account his shares in bookselling chains Weltbild Plus (50%) and Switzerland's Orell Füssli (49%).

According to the Buchreport survey, Weltbild Plus was the fifth-largest book chain in Germany, with estimated sales of DM190m (£60m), up 22.6%. Orell Füssli ranked 10, with sales growth of 24.9% to DM94.5m (£30m).

The fastest-growing chain in the survey was the newly-formed Morawa & Styria. Following the merger of Morawa & Styria in 2000, the largest specialist bookseller in Austria reported sales up 59.3% to DM82.5m (£26m).

While it looks likely that Phönix and Hugendubel will be engaged in a close race for market leadership for some time to come, trade insiders expect a tough fight for the number three spot this year between the Karstadt chain of department stores (ranked third) and Austria's leading chain bookseller Libro (fourth).

Both have been doing well in 2000, with double-digit growth. While Karstadt seems to be on the mend after some disappointing years, Libro has delivered another flawless performance, with sales growing by an impressive 20.6% to DM234.8m (£74.5m).

Libro is the bookselling chain with the largest number of branches (314), followed by Karstadt, which now has book departments in 230 stores, Weltbild (175) and Kaufhof (118).