Pearson Remains World’s Biggest Publisher

Pearson’s sales declined by 15 percent, but it remained the world’s biggest publishing company, according to the Livres Hebdo/Publishers Weekly annual ranking. Total revenues for the world’s 50 biggest publishers topped $50 billion in 2016.

“Less than half of the top 50 publishers posted revenue gains in 2016, with the balance reporting sales declines,” according to Publishers Weekly. Part of the reason for the decline was the decision by Livres Hebdo/Publishers Weekly to exclude revenues from divisions that are no longer in book publishing.

Pearson, the U.K.-based educational publishing company, stayed number one with sales totaling $5.6 billion in spite of drop in sales. The other two biggest publishers also stayed at the top, though they changed positions.

Top 10 Publishers

Below are the 10 biggest publishers in the world, according to a report by Publishers Weekly on Aug. 25.  Only two of the top 10 publishers had sales increases in 2016— Grupo Planeta (number 7) and Springer Nature (number 10). The list includes revenues, mother corporation, and country of mother company.

1. Pearson, $5.6 billion (Pearson, U.K.)
2. RELX Group, $4.9 billion (Reed Elsevier, U.K./Netherlands/U.S.)
3. Thomson Reuters, $4.8 billion (Woodbridge Co., Canada)
4. Bertelsmann, $3.7 billion ( Bertelsmann AG, Germany)
5. Wolters Kluwer, $4. 5 billion (Wolters Kluwer, Netherlands)
6. Hachette Livre, $2.4 billion (Lagardere, France)
7. Grupo Planeta, $1.9 billion (Grupo Planeta, Spain).
8. McGraw-Hill Education, $1.8 billion (The McGraw-Hill Cos., U.S.)
9. Wiley, $1.72 billion (Wiley, U.S.)
10. Springer Nature, $1.71 billion (Springer Nature, Germany)

Read the Publishers Weekly report.

Read last year’s top 10 list:

Five of the World’s Biggest Publishers Stay at the Top