Founded in 2002, China Publishing Group Corporation (CPG) is one of China’s largest trade and professional publishing groups. CPG is active in print and digital publishing, copyright transactions, importing and exporting. Publishing is its core business.

CPG claims a leading share in the domestic book retail market with 40 publishing companies, 96 subsidiaries, and three wholesalers. Publishing imprints include People’s Literature Publishing House, The Commercial Press (founded in 1897), Zhonghua Book Company (founded in 1912), Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, People’s Music Publishing House, SDX Joint Publishing Company, China Translation Publishing House, Orient Publishing Centre, Xinhua Bookstore Head Office, China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation (CNPIEC) and China Translation Corporation.

CPG aspires to be a major actor in the global publishing industry and become "the world’s leading publishing group," according to president Tan Yue. CPG releases 16,000 new publications per year including audio-visual, electronic and online publications as well as journals, and closes more than 2,000 rights transactions per year. Its book imports and exports division, CNIEPC, shifts a total of 200,000 titles per year, which represents a market share of 62 for imports and 30% for exports, and handles 20 million items per year in imports and exports, for which it has established a network of 28 offices with its business extending to 130 countries.

Analysis & Key Developments

Financial

In 2015, the revenue of CPG amounted to 9.1 billion RMB. Profits accounted for 924 million RMB. The group’s total assets amount to 17.9 billion RMB.

Company Developments

CPG won the top position on China’s Most Acclaimed List by Reviewers, the country’s most influential national reviewers list. CPG represented nine of the 28 titles on the list.

Market Shifts

2015 marked a year of preparation for strategic shifts in an increasingly competitive publishing market. CPG boosted its backlist sales and channel investments in the expansion of children’s books, as well as business and fiction titles.

Acquisitions and Cooperations

In 2015, CPG acquired a Shanghai literature imprint to strengthen its position in the literary fiction market.

International

CNIEPC’s import and export profits exceeded 100 million RMB for the first time in 15 years.

In 2015, CPG sold 797 foreign rights.

Digital

CPG increased its digital ambitions with several initiatives, including: Professional database Chinese Classics Database and 100 Selected Dictionary Database; YeeCloud, an intelligent and multilingual translation service platform supported by Internet and cloud technology with a market value of nearly 1 billion RMB; CNPeReading, a platform developed by China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation, which lists more than 1.7 million international e-books and more than 200,000 domestic e-books and journals.

In 2015, digital operations generated 877 million RMB or 9.64% of the group’s revenues, representing a year-on-year growth of 30.7%.

Bestsellers

In 2015, 84 titles exceeded sales of 100,000. Nine of them were released last year, including the three-volume Anti-Japanese War, which sold more than half a million copies. Another top seller was Fire Print by International Anderson Award winner Cao Wenxuan, which sold 170,000 copies. Other bestselling titles included the romance novel Collapse of Mundane Life (200,000), and the nonfiction title People’s Republic of China Law of Food Safty: An Explanation (175,000). Five dictionaries continued to sell over a million copies each.

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