Global 50 Publishing Ranking Marks Its 20th Edition
The global publishing industry no longer moves in one direction. STM and professional publishers have become its strongest segment, trade publishing is proving remarkably resilient, and education is splitting between digital winners and traditional textbook businesses under pressure.
These are key findings of the Global 50 Publishing Ranking 2026, which places Bertelsmann at the top, with €5.93 billion in publishing global revenue, with €5.93 billion in publishing revenue across Penguin Random House and Bertelsmann Education Group. It is followed by RELX Group (€5.64 billion), Thomson Reuters (€5.63 billion), Wolters Kluwer (€4.26 billion) and Pearson (€4.10 billion). Penguin Random House, with €4.98 billion in revenue, remains the world’s largest trade publishing group.
Global 50 Publishing Ranking 2026 will be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Publishing consultant Carlo Carrenho will moderate a brief on-stage conversation with Rüdiger Wischenbart, who will present the new ranking and discuss its principal findings and the trends transforming the international publishing industry.
First launched in 2007, the Global 50 has been researched annually by Rüdiger Wischenbart Content and Consulting, working with international partners and contributors.
The 2026 edition ranks 48 publishing groups according to their annual publishing revenues and lists six additional major publishing companies that are part of larger groups and are therefore not ranked separately.
“The global publishing industry remains remarkably concentrated at the top. More than half of the revenue generated by the 48 companies in the ranking comes from just the ten largest groups. Consolidation continues to be one of the defining forces shaping the industry,” said Rüdiger Wischenbart, author of the Global 50.
The full Global 50 Publishing Ranking 2026 is available to download free of charge from here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EPZP7pPMXb90NEJ-BW7fnThPbu10VB7l/view