By: E&P Staff If your newspaper has been suffering circulation declines, cheer up -- it's a global trend. According to a report on the state of the global newspaper industry delivered at the 57th annual World Newspaper Congress this weekend, the world's newspapers enjoyed growing advertising sales in 2003 but reader numbers were in slight decline.
Newspaper circulation increased last year in only 35 of the 208 countries studied with developing countries accounting for much of the growth. Papers in western Europe registered a fall in circulation numbers, according to an analysis by Agence France Presse (AFP).
"The Chinese market was booming, with a 4.1% rise in newspaper circulation in 2003, and a 35.7% increase over five years," AFP wrote.
China tops newspaper circulation, with more than 85 million publications sold every day, followed by India with 72 million, Japan with 70 million and the United States with 55 million.
"The Norwegians remained the world's most avid news readers, followed by the Japanese, the Swedes and the Finns," according to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) study.
"In Japan, sales fell by 0.6% in 2003, and by 2.6% over five years, but the country produced the world's top-selling daily in 2003, the Yomiuri Shimbum with over 14 million copies sold daily.
"Meanwhile circulation slumped by an average of 2.2% across 13 of the 15 countries which made up the European Union before May 1, with 1.4 million fewer newspaper copies sold per day. The most serious declines were in Ireland, down 7.8%, Britain with a 4.7% decrease, and Portugal, where reader numbers fell by 4.0%.
"The distribution of free newspapers -- not reflected in the overall figures -- grew spectacularly in 2003, rising by 16%."
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