In 2009, even the world’s largest book publishers were more concerned with coping with the recession than expansion; as such, there was little movement at the top in the annual Livres Hebdo/Publishers Weekly ranking of the world’s biggest publishers. Pearson remained #1, with revenues from its educational operations and Penguin generating a total of $7.75 billion in 2009.

The only changes in the top 10 involved Grupo Planeta, which, helped by its acquisition of France’s Editis, moved from eighth to seventh place, leapfrogging the McGraw-Hill Cos., whose own operations suffered from the weak U.S. education market. Still, MHC remained the largest book publisher based in the U.S. Sneaking into the top 10 was Holtzbrinck, although its ranking is based on 2008 data, as the privately held German publisher has not yet disclosed 2009 results. The weak U.S. el-hi educational market also resulted in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt falling three places in the world ranking, to number 14, and Scholastic fell to 12 from 10. John Wiley, with strength in STM and higher education, picked up one slot in the ranking (Wiley’s figures are for fiscal 2009; fiscal 2010 figures, released last Thursday, came too late for this ranking).

Although North American and European publishers continued to dominate the list in 2009, Asian publishers moved up a bit, with the largest, Japan’s Shueisha, now the world’s 15th largest publisher, up from 18 in 2008. Altogether, Japan placed seven publishers among the world’s top 50.

No one publishing sector dominated the top of the charts, with the leading publishers a mix of trade, educational and professional.

Rank Company Parent Company Country 2009 $Revenues 2008 $Revenues
1 Pearson Pearson (Corp.) UK 7,756.40 7,419.72
2 Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier Corp. UK/NL/US 7,367.12 6,746.01
3 Thomson Reuters The Woodbridge Co. Ltd. Canada 5,470.00 5,126.00
4 Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer NL 4,910.77 4,963.15
5 Bertelsmann Bertelsmann AG Germany 4,256.95 4,383.58
6 Lagardère Publishing/ Hachette Livre France Lagardère France 3,259.03 3,175.89
7 Grupo Planeta Grupo Planeta Spain 2,586.58 2,588.96
8 McGraw-Hill Education The McGraw-Hill Cos. US 2,388.00 2,639.00
9 De Agostini Editore Gruppo De Agostini Italy N/A 2,235.29
10 Holtzbrinck Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck Germany N/A 1,962.87
11 Cengage Learning Apax Partners et al. Canada/US 1,958.00 1,723.40
12 Scholastic Corp. Scholastic US 1,849.00 2,205.60
13 Wiley Wiley US 1,611.00 1,674.70
14 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Education Media and Publishing Group Ltd. US/Cayman Islands 1,600.00 2,049.00
15 Shueisha Shueisha Japan 1,448.14 1,326.84
16 Shogakukan Shogakukan Japan 1,385.05 1,363.62
17 Kodansha Kodansha Japan 1,352.07 1,303.31
18 Springer Science and Business Media Cinven and Candover UK/Germany/Italy/France 1,228.77 1,294.48
19 HarperCollins News Corp. US 1,141.00 1,388.00
20 Informa Informa plc UK 1,074.90 1,512.04
21 Oxford University Press Oxford University UK 938.65 910.55
22 Bonnier The Bonnier Group Sweden 937.71 906.72
23 Grupo Santillana PRISA Spain 884.50 852.80
24 Gakken Gakken Co. Ltd. Japan 845.94 757.57
25 Egmont Group Egmont International Holding A/S Denmark/Norway 838.77 947.32
26 RCS Libri RCS Media Group Italy 828.88 1,017.78
27 Simon & Schuster CBS US 793.50 857.70
28 Reader’s Digest Reader’s Digest Holdings US 758.00 1,111.70
29 Klett Klett Gruppe Germany 667.72 638.41
30 Cornelsen Cornelsen Germany 617.97 521.18
31 Kadokawa Publishing Kadokawa Holdings Inc. Japan 614.67 489.84
32 Mondadori The Mondadori Group Italy 612.23 521.18
33 Sanoma (formely WSOY Publishing and Educational Publishing Sanoma WSOY Finland 610.37 453.80
34 Messageri Italiane-Gruppo Messagerie Italiane editoriale Mauri Italy 494.66 453.80
35 Harlequin Torstar Corp. Canada 468.85 464.84
36 Média Participations Media Participations France 456.95 456.60
37 Lefebvre-Sarrut Frojal France 450.21 453.80
38 La Martinière Groupe La Martinière Groupe France 372.79 355.98
39 Higher Education Press Higher Education Press China (PR) 367.91 379.52
40 Kyowon Kyowon Korea 365.62 251.54
41 Westermann Verlagsgruppe Medien Union (Rheinland-Pflaz Gruppe) Germany 358.16 363.04
42 Groupe Gallimard Madrigall France 347.98 454.51
43 Bungei Japan 322.61 288.32
44 Shinchosha Japan 302.53 278.02
45 Weka Weka Firmengruppe Germany 300.81 325.24
46 Perseus Perseus US N/A 300.00
47 Haufe Gruppe Germany 274.43 273.75
48 MairDuMont Germany 258.08 257.43
49 Weltbild Verlagsgruppe Weltbild GmbH Germany 250.92 257.43
50 Groupe Albin Michel France 234.43 228.01

Note: Figures are based on sales generated in calendar 2009 or—in cases with a fiscal year—from fiscal 2009. Data are from publicly available sources and include sales of books, journals and digital products. Because publishing data were unavailable, Pannini and Disney/Hyperion are excluded from the rankings. The listing was compiled by international publishing consultant Rudiger Wischenbart (www.wischenbart.com) under the aegis of Livres Hebdo.