Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dc, marketshare, marvel

Marvel Smashes Three Titles Into The Top Five For March 2012 – But Did They?

I expected that Marvel would take the top spot away from Justice League in March, due to the sales of Avengers Vs X-Men #0, and Jim Lee leaving the book for a short sabbatical. But, thanks to Marvel shipping Avengers Vs X-Men #1 a week early, to be held for this week, they've taken the top two spots. As well as grabbing the fifth spot with Avengers Assemble.

Of late, DC has increasingly improved its grip on the top sales in comics, with even Aquaman outselling every Marvel title. It's worth noting that while Marvel now have three books in the top five, Aquaman – and now Batman And Robin too, are still outselling their next bestseller, Uncanny X-Men.

You can also see a strange disparity between Avengers Vs X-Men #0 and Justice League #7 in that while they are both priced the same, Avengers Vs X-Men #0 counts more copies sold, but Justice League #7 counts more dollars raised. This indicates that Marvel gave away a significant number of copies to retailers as overship, counted on quantity but not on revenue raised.

Which means, if you only counted Avengers Vs X-Men #1 as a March sale and you discounted the overship of Avengers Vs X-Men #0, Justice League #7 would still be the best selling comic in the direct market.

Something similar happened with Avengers Assemble #1 when you compare it to the sales of Action Comics #7. Indeed through the chart there are signs of such oddities, presumably caused by Marvel overshipping copies of comics.

Estimates indicate that Avengers Vs X-Men #1 sold around 206,000. Add on to that a British estimate and you'd get around 236,000. Then there's reorders which sold out, which would in all likelihood push it over the 250,000 mark. Look for more copies of AVX #1 to be listed next month. In comparison, AVX #0 did about 136,000, Justice League #7 did around 130,000, Batman #7 did around 130,000 and Avengers Assemble #1 did 102,000.

Despite the addition of Avengers Vs X-Men #1, DC actually did better on marketshare than last month. DC gained a point and a half in dollar share up from 29.47% to 30.95%, while improving their actual numbers of comics sold from 35.26% to 36.09%. Marvel also gained with dollar share increasing from 35.93% to 36.21% while increasing their share of comics sold from 35.25% to 36.09%, both companies shaving percentages off smaller publishers.

PUBLISHER MARKET SHARES

COMPARATIVE SALES STATISTICS

TOP 10 COMICS

TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS

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