Press Release
Hachette India now second largest publisher in India01/02/2010
Hachette India has become the second largest trade publisher in the country by value terms after only one full year of trading, it was reported in The Bookseller today.
A new addition to the Indian publishing industry, the division surpassed its own expectations and saw a strong year, pushing it ahead of both HarperCollins and Random House with sales of approx. R270m (£3.6m). Only Penguin achieved higher sales in 2009, generating a turnover of double that achieved by Hachette India.
Thomas Abraham, managing director of Hachette India said "It will take a long time for anyone else to catch up [with Penguin], but we will get there".
“We didn’t expect to be number two after our first full year... We thought we would have a good year, but we expected that to be three years away” said Abraham in the article.
He emphasised the wide range of titles that had contributed to the level of sales including a local publishing list contributing two big sellers: My Friend Sancho by Amit Varma and the Children’s Infopedia & Yearbook. Sleeper hits included Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters and Quantum by Manjit Kumar.
“Local publishing provided much needed fillip to the fact that the Hachette list is being established for the first time,” he said.
Abraham went on to explain “We are more or less following the path we set ourselves, but in value terms we are finishing above where we thought we would.