Consumer ebook sales in the UK soared by 366% during 2011 which helped offset the slump in the market for printed books, according to new official figures released by the Publishers Association.
Overall digital book sales grew by 54% including academic and professional books.
The statistics has been based on a number of surveys including the ongoing Publishers Association Sales Monitor (PASM) data collection scheme, based on data compiled from c250 publishers representing 77% share of total UK publisher sales.
The growth is driven by the strongest growth performance in East & South Asia and Central & South America, majorly Brazil, which generated 41% of revenues earned through export.
The increase is also attributed to the popularity of the Amazon Kindle which is now equivalent to 6% of consumer physical book sales by value.
Entire digital content including ebooks, audio book downloads and online subscriptions account for 8% of the total value of book sales in 2011, up from 5% in 2010.
Overall, digital and physical books sales were down by 2% to £3.2bn though 13% of academic and professional book revenues came from digital products.
Physical sales of school books increased by 6% to £271m and average book prices fell by 1.3%.
The Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet said across fiction, non-fiction, children’s and academic books, the story of the year is a decline in physical sales almost being compensated for by a strong performance in digital.
"For many years now publishers have invested in innovation in digital products and services and this is being reflected in the increasingly mixed economy for books in the UK," added Mollet.
"However, online copyright infringement is increasingly making its presence felt for authors and publishers and that is why we continue to call on government and other stakeholders in the digital economy to work with us to do more to tackle it, and to ensure that the UK’s ecommerce performance is as strong as it can possibly be."
The association noted physical books still remain the choice for the vast majority of UK readers, and academic and schools, English language teaching books occupied the leading spot in British publishers’ export performance.
