rascal_father
18-06-2005, 06:59 AM
The battle for summer sales chart supremacy just got turned up a notch.
Just two months removed from Marvel’s dominant and unprecedented margin of victory in Diamond’s March 2005 Actual Sales Market Share charts, DC Comics has built upon their April comeback and in May had their best showing in recent memory, charting in at the #1 positions in both the Dollar (percentage of dollars generated for all products sold) and Unit (the percentage of raw books sold) Market Share categories in the same month for the first time in nearly 5 years.
DC led the Dollar Share category with 35.29% to Marvel’s 34.79% and the Unit Share category with 41.03% to Marvel’s 39.80% (full chart below).
To break it down for historical perspective (meaning the modern Diamond era), DC’s victory in the Dollar Share category is its first since August 2003 when they eclipsed Marvel by a little more than half a percentage point, 33.12% to 32.53%.
And you have to go back even farther and to an Initial Orders sales chart (meaning not reflecting reorders) to find a month DC ranked #1 in the Unit Share category – January 2002 to be exact – and that “win” did not come without some controversy.
At the time, Diamond included initial orders for DC’s promotional Batman The 10-Cent Adventure in calculating the Top 300 and Market Shares. The inclusion of those substantial unit sales/orders (upwards of 600k at least), plus The Dark Knight Strikes Again #2 helped DC lead the category 39.08% to Marvel’s 37.54%.
It’s very likely DC would not have captured the Unit Share lead that month without Diamond including the 10 Cent Adventure, and that subject became a topic of conversation between the distributor and the major publishers and led to several different methods of handling special promotionally priced comics after that event.
And while DC often led the Dollar Share category prior to the fall of 2001 due largely to what was at the time a far superior trade paperback program than their chief rival, you have to go all the way back to August 2000’s Initial Order chart to find a month when DC was #1 in both the Dollar (35.51% to 24.79%) and Unit (36.52% to 30.43%) Share categories.
Breaking it down (Top 100 chart below) DC took May’s #1 spot on the Top 100 chart with Green Lantern #1 and 5 of the Top 10 and 12 of the Top 25 spots overall, including Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 (#2), Villains United #1 (#5), The OMAC Project #2 (#7), and The Rann-Thanagar War #1 (#9).
This showing must be considered hugely positive news for DC and its Countdown to Infinite Crisis initiative overall as it shows a major chart improvement over last month’s debuts of The OMAC Project #1 and Day of Vengeance #1, which charted in on April’s chart at #20 and #21, respectively.
Orders on OMAC #1’s second printing ranked #74 on May’s chart, obviously helping issue #2 move up the chart into the Top 10. Also impressive is orders holding so strongly with its 2nd issue. Day of Vengeance #2 did not get a similar bounce, however, but remained steady at #22.
Now the news isn’t exactly awful for Marvel despite being in unfamiliar chart territory. Marvel took 11 of the top 20 spots, including the #2 book overall, Astonishing X-Men #10, and they actually had higher market share totals in both Dollar and Unit categories in May than they did in April (34.69% and 35.62%, respectively) although May’s figures are off their 2004 yearly totals of 36.54% and 43.19%.
Of course analysis of any given month also has to include considering notable and high-ranking "monthly" books absent from the charts. In March the lack of a shipped Green Lantern: Rebirth and Superman/Batman helped Marvel carve out their sizable leads. May's M.I.A.'s include New Avengers on Marvel's side and Superma/Batman on DC's.
It's important to keep in mind when analysing Market Share percentage that the figures do not necessarily reflect any rise or fall in monthly sales by any one publisher, just their relative strength/position to other publishers.
Zoom out a notch for broader perspective and what you’ll find is increasing dominance by both DC and Marvel in the overall Market.
Dark Horse was the only publisher besides the big to able to crack the Top 50, with Conan #15 and only 6 of the Top 100 came from other publishers.
DC and Marvel’s combined Market Share of 70.08% Dollar is the highest total since April ’04 when they combined for a total of 75.98%, and their combined 80.83% Unit Share represents the highest combined total reflected on any Diamond chart archived through mid-1998.
In other words, Marvel and DC books took up more retailer shelf/rack space in May 2005 than any month in at least 7 years. And that figure could be going even higher in the coming months with the debut of Marvel’s House of M in June.
Also noteworthy is the role that reorders of Marvel and DC books played on May's chart, particularly in the bottom third. Usually dominated by smaller press books, no less than 32 of the final 100 books in the Top 300 were reorders of Marvel and DC books (and reprints) released in prior months, including all 7 issues of DC's Identity Crisis and Green Lantern: Rebirth #1-5.
Just two months removed from Marvel’s dominant and unprecedented margin of victory in Diamond’s March 2005 Actual Sales Market Share charts, DC Comics has built upon their April comeback and in May had their best showing in recent memory, charting in at the #1 positions in both the Dollar (percentage of dollars generated for all products sold) and Unit (the percentage of raw books sold) Market Share categories in the same month for the first time in nearly 5 years.
DC led the Dollar Share category with 35.29% to Marvel’s 34.79% and the Unit Share category with 41.03% to Marvel’s 39.80% (full chart below).
To break it down for historical perspective (meaning the modern Diamond era), DC’s victory in the Dollar Share category is its first since August 2003 when they eclipsed Marvel by a little more than half a percentage point, 33.12% to 32.53%.
And you have to go back even farther and to an Initial Orders sales chart (meaning not reflecting reorders) to find a month DC ranked #1 in the Unit Share category – January 2002 to be exact – and that “win” did not come without some controversy.
At the time, Diamond included initial orders for DC’s promotional Batman The 10-Cent Adventure in calculating the Top 300 and Market Shares. The inclusion of those substantial unit sales/orders (upwards of 600k at least), plus The Dark Knight Strikes Again #2 helped DC lead the category 39.08% to Marvel’s 37.54%.
It’s very likely DC would not have captured the Unit Share lead that month without Diamond including the 10 Cent Adventure, and that subject became a topic of conversation between the distributor and the major publishers and led to several different methods of handling special promotionally priced comics after that event.
And while DC often led the Dollar Share category prior to the fall of 2001 due largely to what was at the time a far superior trade paperback program than their chief rival, you have to go all the way back to August 2000’s Initial Order chart to find a month when DC was #1 in both the Dollar (35.51% to 24.79%) and Unit (36.52% to 30.43%) Share categories.
Breaking it down (Top 100 chart below) DC took May’s #1 spot on the Top 100 chart with Green Lantern #1 and 5 of the Top 10 and 12 of the Top 25 spots overall, including Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 (#2), Villains United #1 (#5), The OMAC Project #2 (#7), and The Rann-Thanagar War #1 (#9).
This showing must be considered hugely positive news for DC and its Countdown to Infinite Crisis initiative overall as it shows a major chart improvement over last month’s debuts of The OMAC Project #1 and Day of Vengeance #1, which charted in on April’s chart at #20 and #21, respectively.
Orders on OMAC #1’s second printing ranked #74 on May’s chart, obviously helping issue #2 move up the chart into the Top 10. Also impressive is orders holding so strongly with its 2nd issue. Day of Vengeance #2 did not get a similar bounce, however, but remained steady at #22.
Now the news isn’t exactly awful for Marvel despite being in unfamiliar chart territory. Marvel took 11 of the top 20 spots, including the #2 book overall, Astonishing X-Men #10, and they actually had higher market share totals in both Dollar and Unit categories in May than they did in April (34.69% and 35.62%, respectively) although May’s figures are off their 2004 yearly totals of 36.54% and 43.19%.
Of course analysis of any given month also has to include considering notable and high-ranking "monthly" books absent from the charts. In March the lack of a shipped Green Lantern: Rebirth and Superman/Batman helped Marvel carve out their sizable leads. May's M.I.A.'s include New Avengers on Marvel's side and Superma/Batman on DC's.
It's important to keep in mind when analysing Market Share percentage that the figures do not necessarily reflect any rise or fall in monthly sales by any one publisher, just their relative strength/position to other publishers.
Zoom out a notch for broader perspective and what you’ll find is increasing dominance by both DC and Marvel in the overall Market.
Dark Horse was the only publisher besides the big to able to crack the Top 50, with Conan #15 and only 6 of the Top 100 came from other publishers.
DC and Marvel’s combined Market Share of 70.08% Dollar is the highest total since April ’04 when they combined for a total of 75.98%, and their combined 80.83% Unit Share represents the highest combined total reflected on any Diamond chart archived through mid-1998.
In other words, Marvel and DC books took up more retailer shelf/rack space in May 2005 than any month in at least 7 years. And that figure could be going even higher in the coming months with the debut of Marvel’s House of M in June.
Also noteworthy is the role that reorders of Marvel and DC books played on May's chart, particularly in the bottom third. Usually dominated by smaller press books, no less than 32 of the final 100 books in the Top 300 were reorders of Marvel and DC books (and reprints) released in prior months, including all 7 issues of DC's Identity Crisis and Green Lantern: Rebirth #1-5.