The academic publishing industry generates around $19 billion annually globally. However, around 50% of that revenue is distributed between only 5 major players. Similarly to the book publishing industry, which has its own big five, academic publishing is dominated by a few major companies.
This report will look into the profitability and scale of academic publishing across the world, as well as look at the ever-growing role of open-access publishing in the industry’s profits.
The worldwide revenue from academic publishing stands at over $19 billion per year.
Out of this figure, over 50% is attributed to 5 major publishing companies – Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, and SAGE.
The academic publishing industry has one of the biggest profit margins, sometimes amounting to 40%.
Major players in academic publishing generate larger profit margins than some of the most successful tech companies, like Google and Amazon.
Elsevier is the biggest academic publishing company in the world, generating over $3.35 in revenue. SAGE, Springer Nature, and John Wiley & Sons all generate over $1.5 billion annually.
Largest academic publishers in the world
When it comes to the number of academic journals published, Elsevier published 2,928 journals in 2022, the most among all academic publishers.
Springer (2,920) and Taylor and Francis (2,508) are the only remaining publishers with over 2,000 journals.
Together with Wiley (1,607) and SAGE (1,151), these 5 publishers have over 11,141 journals under their wing as of 2022.
This means that the Big5 in academic publishing accounts for at least 25% of all journals published worldwide.
Publisher
Published journals
Elsevier
2,928
Springer
2,920
Taylor & Francis
2,508
Wiley
1,607
SAGE
1,151
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
747
Egypts Presidential Specialized Council for Education and Scientific Research
743
Oxford University Press
485
MDPI
408
CAIRN
398
When it comes to open-access journals, the biggest publishers are still resisting this growing trend:
20.18% of Elsevier’s journals are open-access, and this is the biggest share of open journals among the top 5 publishers.
Wiley has only 4.11% of journals with open access, and Taylor & Francis has around 9.97%.
On the other hand, publishers like MDPI and Copernicus are fully engaged in open-access and all of their journals are widely available for free.
