The school and university book market - Italy

1.1 Definition and presentation

A textbook is a particular book used for educational purposes within schools and universities. Thus, educational publishing refers to a segment of the publishing industry, consisting of all textbook publications.

The global textbook market is growing, due to rising book prices, at the same time, however, McKinsey shows how Americans' spending on new books is decreasing, in favor of rental books (-8 percent from 2012 to 2018).

This market in Italy is worth almost a third of the three billion in the overall publishing sector, according to data published by the Italian Publishers Association (Aie) at the end of last year. The school textbook sector today is mainly controlled by four groups-De Agostini, Mondadori, Pearson Italia, and Zanichelli.

In recent years, the textbook market has evolved significantly from a product that was exclusively paper-based two decades ago to one that now includes e-books, homework solutions and digital courseware tools under the umbrella term "textbooks."

The market segment is facing several threats, consisting of used bookstores and online resale marketplaces offering textbooks at steep discounts that are attractive to students, but these players compete with textbook publishers that rely on new book sales. Recently, a new type of player, the textbook rental reseller, has emerged. Although this change has benefited publishers so far, it could significantly threaten their market share in the next three years.