The Global 50: The World's Largest Book Publishers, 2012

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Pearson's commitment to publishing allowed it to widen the company's lead as the world's largest book publisher in 2011. While Pearson, with holdings in both the trade and educational publishing segments, was able to increase its revenue last year, its closest rivals lost ground, according to Livres Hebdo/Publishers Weekly's annual ranking of the world's largest publishers. Second place Reed Elsevier, for example, saw its publishing sales fall as it had created a risk management division, which has no book-related sales.

Among other top 10 companies, Hachette Livre sales dipped due to spotty softness worldwide, including a small decline in the U.S. Grupo Planeta sales were also off in 2011, and with economic conditions worsening in Spain the publisher faces a difficult 2012. Softness in the school market resulted in a decline in sales at McGraw-Hill Education in 2011, but the company remained the largest U.S.-based book publisher.

Bertelsmann's book revenue declined in 2011 as well, due to the sale of its direct group business, and its publishing activities are now centered around Random House's trade publishing operations. The company could move up the charts in the future, however, if Bertelsmann makes good on its plan to expand into educational publishing. Its German rival, Holtzbrinck, has long had a diversified publishing portfolio of trade, science, and educational properties, and it had strong gains in 2011, closing the gap with Bertelsmann (at least on the publishing side) and putting the parent company of Macmillan in ninth place among the global publishing giants. The 10 largest publishers accounted for about 47% of all revenue generated by the 54 companies that made this year's list.

Beyond the top 10, one of the most notable changes among the largest publishers occurred in the first part of 2012, when Russian publishing leader AST (#45 overall in 2011) bought EKSMO (#54).

Click on the company name in the table below to read a profile of that company.

Note: Reader’s Digest figures are revenue for the entire company. Book sales in 2011 were $545 million and $590 million in 2010. Figures are based on sales generated in calendar 2011 or—for corporations with a fiscal year—from fiscal 2011. Data are from publicly available sources and include sales of books, journals, and digital products. Because publishing data were unavailable, Pannini, Weltbild, and Disney/Hyperion are excluded from the rankings. The listing was compiled by international publishing consultant Rudiger Wischenbart under the aegis of Livres Hebdo.