Chinese publishing giant Phoenix Publishing and Media Group was ranked ninth on the list of the 50 largest publishers in the world in 2021.

PPMG, the biggest publisher in China, climbed two places from last year's ranking.

RELX Group (Reed Elsevier) and Thomson Reuters continued to occupy the top two places with respective annual operating revenues of $5.89 billion and $5.13 billion.

An initiative by Livres Hebdo, this annual snapshot of the global book business has been updated every year since 2007, and is co-published by Bookdao, China, The Bookseller, UK, Buchreport, Germany, Publishers Weekly, USA, and PublishNews Brazil. It has been researched by RüdigerWischenbart Content and Consulting.

This ranking lists 55 book publishing corporations worldwide, with revenues each of over € 150 million ($200 million), since 2007 and portrays global book publishing in its transformation through digital, globalization and consolidation.

The 2021 edition highlights China's forceful entrance onto the world stage, with now 4 publishing groups listed, of which one are among the top 10.

The survey also allows to track recent mergers & acquisitions, as well as the performance of key segments of the industry, such as scientific and professional (STM), educational or general consumer (trade) publishing.

Led by the French magazine Book Weekly, the ranking was developed by the Austrian publishing consultant Rüdiger Wischenbart to illustrate the global publishing industry. Every year, Wischenbart collects the data on publishing companies with revenues over €150 million, and analyses them on his personal website.

A summary of the 2021 findings (which are mostly based on 2020 financial results) can be downloaded from the bottom of this article.