Portuguese Book Sales Dip 1.9% in the Second Quarter, the First Fall Since the Pandemic
Portuguese book sales fell 1.9% by volume in the second quarter to 3.26 million copies, the first decline since the pandemic despite the Lisbon Book Fair. Revenue slipped 1.8% to €47.25 million, with flat prices pointing to fewer buyers rather than costlier books.
Portugal's book market has recorded its first decline since the pandemic, with sales slipping in the second quarter of 2026 despite the traditional lift from the Lisbon Book Fair. The dip is small in percentage terms, but it breaks a long run of growth and has prompted the industry's trade body to renew its warning that the country reads, and buys, too little.
The numbers
Between April and June, Portuguese readers bought 3.26 million books, 17,869 fewer than in the same quarter of 2025 — a fall of 1.9% by volume. Revenue slipped in step, down 1.8% to €47.25 million. The figures come from GfK, the market-research firm that audits sales for the APEL (Associação Portuguesa de Editores e Livreiros, the Portuguese Association of Publishers and Booksellers), and they are notable precisely because the quarter includes the Feira do Livro de Lisboa (Lisbon Book Fair), normally one of the strongest selling periods of the year.
Crucially, price was not the culprit. The average cover price rose just 0.1%, effectively flat, which means the drop reflects fewer books changing hands rather than shoppers balking at higher prices. People are simply buying less.
Who buys what, and where
The breakdown offers a portrait of the Portuguese reader. Children's books were the single largest category by volume, at 36.7% of units sold, though their low average price of €11.49 meant they accounted for a smaller 29.1% of revenue. Fiction made up 34.1% of units but, at an average €16.68, the largest slice of revenue at 39.2%. Non-fiction took 25.6% of units and 30.7% of the money, at a €17.36 average.
Bricks-and-mortar bookshops remain dominant, taking 70.7% of units and 79.2% of revenue, with hypermarkets accounting for the rest — a reminder that in Portugal the specialist bookseller still anchors the trade, even as supermarket shelves capture the more price-sensitive buyer.
A structural worry, not a blip
For APEL, the quarter's numbers are less a one-off than a symptom. The association's president, Miguel Pauseiro, used the data to repeat a familiar lament: that Portugal sits among the lowest-ranked countries in Europe for literacy, for books bought per head and for the number of specialised bookshops. He called again for a coordinated national strategy to support reading, arguing that market data alone will not reverse a long-standing cultural and economic deficit.
Whether a single soft quarter justifies alarm is debatable — a 1.9% dip after years of expansion could as easily reflect a cost-of-living squeeze on discretionary spending as any deeper malaise. Households wrestling with rents and food bills tend to trim exactly the sort of optional purchase a book represents. But for an industry that has spent years pointing to weak structural foundations, the first fall since the pandemic is an uncomfortable data point, and one it is determined not to let pass without a policy argument attached.
