We now have received additional information that suggests even more opportunity in the Far East.  While Japan has a population roughly 40% of the U.S., its newspaper sales are about 25% higher, roughly 70 M vs. 53 M.  In India and China, 2005 sales were 79 M and 97 M, and growing.  It is no wonder that the next big race and the greatest efforts in the newspaper technology arena are likely to be in these two countries, while the US market will continue to decline in priority.

In India, in fact, not only is the industry robust, but it is expanding at an astonishing rate.  As newspaper titles decline here, in India, in 2006, nearly 2,100 new newspapers made their debut.  That represents only a 3% increase from the 60,000 base, but what a difference that makes!  In Delhi, a city with at least 15 M official inhabitants there were actually two new dailies to hit the streets, adding to the more than a dozen titles already in circulation. In fact throughout India, only four newspapers went out of circulation in the 2006 period.

The startling growth is caused significantly by the rapidly expanding middle class and the current and expanding level of literacy.  A booming economy has fueled an explosion in consumer spending and this consumer spending has fueled an explosion in advertising. Last year, for example, newspaper advertising revenue is reported to have jumped almost 25%.  In the big cities of Delhi and Mumbai, the literacy rate of the population over 7 years of age is now about 80%.  While not as high in other areas of the country, it is also rapidly going up everywhere as the job opportunities increase, increasing the newspapers' opportunities further. Unlike the West, being seen reading a newspaper is taken as a sign of upward mobility in India, a visual badge of success. When moving to the city, or when the first generation goes to college, one of the first things that families do is subscribe to a newspaper!