Ever since the first printed pages saw the light of day, publishers have become the leading power in the distribution of knowledge and information. Publishers have changed and evolved over the centuries. Today, we have a small group of elite publishers who are domineering the entire market. Continue reading to find out more about the top ten most successful publishing companies in the world.
Person
The number 1 publishing company in the world was founded in 1844. Operating in over 70 countries, it offers educational content and digital services to governments around the world.
RELX Group
What used to be known as Reed Elsevier, is now RELX Group, and they mostly deal with professional material, like editing and reviewing scientific articles.
Thomson Reuters
The Canadian conglomerate covers television, news, professional solutions, and publishing. Their “book” sector covers a more professional material like tax, government, media, law, and compliance.
Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is by many criteria one of the greatest publishing companies, but mostly by the fact that it has over 100,000 employees all over the world. Even though it had a dark past, being the publisher who printed out material for the German Armed Forces, it managed to overcome it by acquiring Random House and returning on the book scene.
Wolters Kluwer
This publisher was established by a union that was formed among the 4 leading publishing companies in the Netherlands. A great majority of its publications are related to the medical area and they are also mostly digital.
Hachette Livre
The French publishing company, Hachette Livre, is the third-largest trade book publisher in the world. The starting point for this company were alphabet primers. However, today it mostly operates around fiction and non-fiction books.
Grupo Planeta
The leading publisher in Latin America and Spain is Grupo Planeta. Focusing on news, culture, and learning, this family-owned business has over 170 brands under its wing. One of the company’s latest projects involves learning and university division.
Springer Nature
The German publishing company started its mission of delivering high-quality educational books to readers back in 1842. A family-owned Holtzbrinck Publishing Group controls the majority of this company.
Scholastic
With total revenue of 1,7 billion dollars, this US-based publishing company has without a doubt left its mark on the entire industry being the no 1 distributor of books for children. This publisher had much success with different titles, but one title, in particular, brought this company among the big players – Harry Potter.
McGraw-Hill Education
This publishing giant was founded in 1888, by John A Hill and James H McGraw. It was in the 1950s that the company shifted to educational books. Due to this shift, this is now a world-known publishing company that exceeded 50 percent of total sales in 2019.