By Carlo Carrenho, Contributing Editor
Among the week’s news: strong growth in Germany’s Speaker-Box market; Brazil’s book market posts solid growth in in 2025, while the Netherlands and Japan stumbled; South Korea enacts an AI law; and a Spanish report underscores the importance of communication between the publishing and the film and TV markets.Germany’s Speaker-Box Market Is More Than Just Tonies
Hamburg-based Tiger 
Media reported revenue growth of more than 30% in 2024 and is forecasting a similar increase in 2025. The performance follows a mid-seven-figure investment from Edel, a major independent media group, co-founder Till Weitendorf Digital Publishing Report in an interview. The company operates the Tigertones children’s audio streaming platform alongside its Tigerbox speaker line, and Weitendorf points to steady demand for curated children’s audio as parents move away from open platforms such as Spotify and Instagram. The company’s November 2025 launch of Tigerbox Mini targets children aged three and above.
Germany’s speaker-box market is deeply penetrated, but it extends beyond the figurine-based collectible approach of Tonies, which is estimated to command an 85% market share. Tiger Media, with a roughly 10% market share at the moment, is betting on its contrasting subscription-based streaming model as an alternative. Another local competitor, Galakto, also plays a role in this market, underscoring that the category is more diverse than it first appears. Tonies remains the dominant force, recently announcing a U.S. partnership with Pokémon, and its popularity has produced unusual side effects: a coordinated series of thefts targeting Tonies figurines in bookshops across North Rhine–Westphalia, reported in Börsenblatt.
Brazil’s Book Market Posts Colorful Real Growth of 3.5%
Brazil’s book retail market closed 2025 with solid growth, driven by strong year-end sales and steady performance throughout the year, according to data from NielsenIQ BookData and reported by PublishNews. The market tallied 60.33 million copies, generating R$3.09 billion ($620 million) in revenue, up 7.75% in volume and 8.68% in value compared to 2024. The reports also present figures excluding coloring books, which would show growth of 1.94% in units and 5.12% in revenue, pointing to underlying structural expansion. NielsenIQ BookData regional director Luiz Gaspar said the results indicate continued momentum beyond short-term effects.
It’s always good to share positive news in this column, and Brazil’s numbers are genuinely encouraging. The figures are not inflation-adjusted (average inflation in 2025 was around 5% for the year), which largely wipes out revenue growth if coloring books are excluded, but that framing misses the point. Coloring books are sold in bookstores and are part of the publishing market, so their success should be celebrated, not discounted. Taken as a whole, revenue growth of 8.68% against roughly 5% inflation still implies real growth of more than 3.5% in 2025, and that’s result that deserves to be celebrated with a good caipirinha.
Dutch Book Market Stumbles, but Digital Cushions the Blow
The Dutch book market generated about €697 million ($755 million) in 2025 on sales of just over 44 million books, according to figures from Stichting CPNB, and reported by InCT. Revenue was effectively flat year over year, but volumes declined, with Dutch-language titles under particular pressure as physical sales fell 4% across genres. Growth in foreign-language books slowed to around 1% percent. Digital formats, however, continued to expand with commercial e-book and audiobook subscriptions up 36% in revenue and now accounting for more than 60% of total digital income. Digital library loans rose 5% percent, while physical borrowing slipped slightly to about 51 million loans.
Adjusted for the Netherlands’ average inflation rate of 3.3% in 2025, the market contracted in real terms, broadly in line with the decline in physical sales. But the more concerning issue is weakening demand, not inflation. Inflation simply explains why revenues held steady despite fewer books being sold. The strength of digital also stands out: subscriptions now make up 60% of digital revenues—well below Scandinavia’s 90%-plus levels, but still a strong and expanding position, likely reinforced by the long-established Dutch habit of borrowing digital books through libraries.
Japan’s Publishing Slide Deepens—But Digital Manga Holds Firm
According to HON.jp, Japan’s combined print and digital publishing market declined 1.6% in 2025 to ¥1.5462 trillion ($10.0 billion), marking a fourth consecutive annual drop.
Print revenue fell 4.1% to ¥964.7 billion ($6.2 billion), slipping below the ¥1 trillion mark for the first time since 1975. Magazines dropped 10% to ¥370.8 billion ($2.4 billion) while books edged up slightly to ¥593.9 billion ($3.8 billion). Digital publishing grew 2.7% to ¥581.5 billion ($3.8 billion), accounting for 37.6% of the market, driven overwhelmingly by digital comics at ¥527.3 billion ($3.4 billion). Digital books rose 1.5% to ¥45.9 billion ($300 million), while digital magazines fell 3.5% to ¥8.3 billion ($50 million), reflecting subscriber declines. The figures come from the Quarterly Publishing Index 2026 Winter Issue, which was released on January 26.
Adjusted for Japan’s average annual inflation of 3.2% in 2025, the market’s real decline deepens to roughly 4.65% year on year, underscoring the scale of the contraction. Against this backdrop, digital publishing stands out as the sole area of growth, now representing more than a third of total revenues. That growth, however, is almost entirely driven by digital manga, while growth in standard digital books remain marginal—well under 10% of manga revenues—reinforcing that digital publishing in Japan is, above all, a manga-led business.
In France, Manga’s Dip Signals a Post-Boom Market
As reported in Publishing Perspectives by Eric Dupuy, France’s book market fell 1.6% in volume and 1.0% in value to €4.4 billion ($5.2 billion) in 2025, according to year-end NielsenIQ BookData figures. Beneath the modest overall decline, the category mix shows sharper stress points, with comics and graphic novels down 8.9% and manga falling 7.7%. The manga dip is particularly striking given France’s position as Europe’s largest manga market and the second biggest worldwide. The segment has long been seen as a driver of volume and younger readership.
Moved by curiosity, I spoke with French publishing consultant Fabrice Piault, from Elements & Perspectives, who framed the manga slowdown as a sign of market maturity. “France is the most important manga market outside Japan, which also means that most of the strongest backlist series are already published,” he said. “As a result, sales now depend heavily on new breakout titles coming from Japan and South Korea, while locally produced ‘French manga’ tends to sell in much smaller numbers,” he continued. He also also pointed to slower publishing rhythms: series that once appeared monthly or quarterly now release less frequently, weighing on overall volume in a market that is no longer in a growth phase.
Spotify Co-CEO Partners with Swedish Independent Publisher
Gustav Söderström, co-CEO, chief product officer, and chief technology officer at Spotify, will become a co-owner and partner at Swedish independent publisher Fri Tanke, according to Boktugg.se. The move comes as Fri Tanke prepares a focused push in 2026–27 into high-quality nonfiction. Alongside its book program, the publisher is also expanding its portfolio of podcasts and live events, with plans to reach both in-person audiences and streaming platforms including YouTube and Spotify, reinforcing its cross-media ambitions.
In other news, Swedish publishers have expressed disappointment that Spotify’s entry into the local audiobook market has not yet driven a more immediate lift in listening, according to Boktugg’s January 23 newsletter. Spotify launched in Sweden last fall, but while it has promoted audiobooks to existing subscribers through in-app pop-ups and search results, the rollout has stopped short of a major marketing push. According to the online trade media, one explanation is timing: only in January did Spotify secure the full range of large audiobook catalogs promised at launch, with work still ongoing to onboard smaller publishers. Boktugg also notes that additional adjustments are reportedly needed following launches in the U.S. and the U.K., where consumers have less experience with subscription-based audio than in the Nordic countries.
South Korea’s AI Law and the Limits of Binary Thinking
South Korea has enacted the AI Basic Act, which the government describes as the world’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence law, according to Anime News Network. The legislation requires companies developing or providing AI models and services to disclose AI-generated content, with a specific allowance for non-visible, machine-readable watermarks in webtoons and animation to avoid disrupting the reading experience. The rules apply to platforms and companies offering AI creation tools or distributing AI-generated works—rather than individual users—meaning major webtoon platforms operating in or serving South Korea may need to update workflows and disclosure systems.
Questions remain around a core issue: how partial AI use, such as background generation or coloring, will be treated under the law. The industry still tends to frame creative work in binary terms—AI versus non-AI—despite a reality that is far more nuanced. In the future, creative works are likely to involve some degree of AI assistance, while only some will be entirely AI-generated or entirely human-made. This makes rigid classification increasingly impractical, and pointing to the need for more sophisticated ways of qualifying creative work that reflect degrees of AI involvement rather than an oversimplified either-or distinction.
Spain’s Audiovisual Appetite for Books Outpaces Industry Alignment
A new report from Institut Français de España and consulting firm Culturia finds that literary adaptations have become a strategic pillar of Spain’s audiovisual sector, accounting for 15%–18% of film releases and 25% of streaming series, according to PublishNews Spain. The study identifies young adult and romance novels as key drivers of series production, while thrillers and drama continue to dominate cinema. It also highlights growing tension between platform-led buyout contracts and Spain’s traditional intellectual property protections, and points to comics as an underused source for screen adaptation due to high production costs. The full report is freely available online.
It is unquestionably good news that so many Spanish audiovisual productions are coming from books, confirming the growing strategic value of publishing IP and the natural synergy between the book and screen industries. At the same time, the report shows how publishing and audiovisual players still struggle to fully understand and communicate with one another and exposes ongoing friction around expectations and collaboration, despite efforts to bring the sectors closer together. This underscores a significant opportunity for professionals, companies, and agents able to bridge this gap in ways that ultimately benefit both industries.
What Else Caught My Eye
A magazine. The latest issue of Digital Publishing Report smartly explores what “relevance” means for publishing beyond content. In German.
A post. Andrew Rhomberg uses the runaway success of Heated Rivalry to draw sharp, practical lessons for book publishing on LInkedIn.
A library board. The National Library Board (NLB) manages Singapore’s public and national libraries and ranked as OverDrive’s third-largest digital-circulating library system in the world in 2025.
A grant. Literature Ireland has opened its 2026 translation grant windows, supporting international publishers translating Irish literature—now limited to works still in copyright.
A pub. The Hand and Flower, a London Book Fair tradition just outside Olympia, gets its last call this year as the fair moves to Excel.
A quote. “It’s like if Ferrari sold cars with stolen wheels; it’s really ridiculous,” said Stefano Mauri, CEO of GeMS, on big AI companies selling products built on misappropriated content.
The writer of this column can’t wait to have grandkids so he can buy them a speaker box. For now, he’s enjoying his Brazilian audiobooks on Swedish Spotify and remembering the best caipiroska—the vodka version of Brazil’s caipirinha—he ever had, which was in Lausanne, Switzerland, of all places.