Publishing revenues in 2010 have overtaken the total revenues for 2008 and 2009, according to the annual ranking of global publishing performance, compiled on behalf of Livres Hebdo, Buchreport, Publishers Weekly and The Bookseller.
Sales of the top 10 publishers are now at €31 billion, having dipped below the 2007 figure of €29.3 billion in both 2008 and 2009. Sales of the top 20 publishers reached €42 billion, the first time they have broken the €40 billion threshold since 2007.
Pearson lead the pack as the world's largest book publisher, helped in 2010 by its education divisions. The company's growth was also driven by Penguin, which notched up a 'record year' last year, with sales up 6 percent, taking it above revenue of £1 billion for the first time in its history. However, Pearson continues to be a rarity among the largest publishers, one of only two groups in the top five with a sizeable trade wing. The London-based group is followed on the list by professional and STM publishers Reed Elsevier, Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer, each of whom now has sales well above their 2008 levels.
Within the top 10, eight groups registered year-on-year sales growth - only Bertelsmann and Hachette Livre did not. Only two groups - Bertelsmann and Scholastic - reported sales below their 2008 levels. The ranking shows no change within the top six, with McGraw-Hill Education moving into seventh position at the expense of Planeta. Cengage Learning and Scholastic are, however, new entrants at nine and 10 respectively.
Among the 10 largest groups, professional and STM publishing is the largest sector, with 43 percent of the total revenues, followed by trade with 31 percent, and education at 26 percent. However, the ranking shows how education has grown in size over the past three years with the sector contributing sales of €6.9 billion in 2008 to €8.2 billion, representing growth of 18%.
The Livres Hebdo global ranking of the publishing industry is compiled by consultant Ruediger Wischenbart and co-published by The Bookseller, Buchreport (Germany) and Publishers Weekly (US). The ranking is based on publishers' own reported revenues, and only based on "publishing" sales, including books, journals and professional information in commercially-run databases.
A full report, including the top 50 ranking and analysis, will be published in The Bookseller and online next week.
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