News & Views: Total Value of Scholarly Journals Market - Delta Think
peter.suber's bookmarks 2024-04-16
Summary:
"Following our recent analysis of the effects of inflation and exchange rates, this month we examine the underlying fundamentals. We look at how the scholarly journals market is defined, as well as its total value....
We estimate the total amount of money changing hands to pay for scholarly journals, regardless of business model. (So our estimate includes both paid readership and paid publishing – i.e. subscriptions and open access. It does not separate out community journals, which are managed as part of institutions’ day-to-day operations.)...
The figure above shows the estimated annual value of the scholarly journals market over a 5-year period. In 2022, we estimated it to be $10.7bn, rising to $10.8bn in 2023. We estimate the long-term average growth of the market to be 2.3% per year. The years following COVID saw above-average growth, and the lower growth in 2023 likely represents a correction back to long-term averages. Our estimate for 2024 is based on mathematically projecting prior year’s data....
The executive summary is that we estimate the total scholarly journals market to be worth around $11bn, growing at around 2.3% per year. (As we have previously noted, this translates to a mild decrease in growth in real terms.)..."