The leader of production has changed in the printing market

According to the results of the first half of the year, the rating of Russian printing companies was headed by the Tver Combine of Children’s Literature. He published 783 editions with a circulation of 22 million copies, calculated in the Russian Book Chamber. The leader of 2022 IPK “Ulyanovsk Printing House” took third place, the second – Smolensk Printing Plant. Market participants note that those who work with government orders, primarily textbooks, have become leaders, while orders for commercial publications are declining.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the data of the Russian Book Chamber (merged with the Russian State Library, RSL) about the 50 largest printing companies in the country in terms of total circulation. In the first half of the year, the market leader changed: the Tver Printing Plant for Children’s Literature became it. He printed 783 editions with a total circulation of 22 million copies. Last year’s leader, Ulyanovsk Press House, took third place with 4,000 publications with a total circulation of 16 million copies.

The Pareto-Print publishing and printing complex, which occupied the second place in the rating at the end of last year, dropped to the fourth position (2 thousand publications with a total circulation of 15 million copies). The Smolensk Printing Plant replaced Pareto-Print in the rating (852 publications with a total circulation of 19 million copies). In total, during the reporting period, the RSL received legal copies of publications from 2,000 printing houses.

The Tver and Smolensk combines are part of JSC Publishing House Higher School. As specified on the company’s website, the Tver Combine cooperates with the publishing houses Enlightenment, Drofa, Flamingo, Azbuka-Atticus, AST and Rosmen.

The total capacity of the Smolensk Printing Plant is 4,265 million kr. / ott (inkprint – each contact of a paper sheet with a format of 60 × 90 cm with a printed form), the Higher School website says: “Up to 3 million hardcover books and 7 million paperback brochures. The plant delivers finished products to any region of the country by freight and rail transport. Representatives of the Tver and Smolensk plants declined to comment, redirecting the request to the “Higher School”. The Kommersant publishing house did not respond.

According to SPARK-Interfax, JSC Publishing House Vysshaya Shkola was 100% owned by the Federal Property Management Agency for the first quarter of 2019. After that, the details of the owners were not disclosed. JSC’s revenue for 2022 amounted to 2.5 billion rubles. with a net profit of 345 million rubles. A year earlier, these figures amounted to 2.1 billion rubles. and 180 million rubles. respectively.

In Russia, for several years now, there has been a shortage of printing facilities. In 2021, it became so aggravated that printing houses could strictly dictate terms to publishers (see Kommersant dated September 3, 2021).

After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the situation worsened: there was an acute shortage of personnel in the book printing sector, serious problems with coated paper, consumables, equipment and spare parts for it due to sanctions (see Kommersant of March 11 and October 5, 2022) . The position of printers was exacerbated by outdated equipment and lack of investment.

The Polyandria publishing house (which specializes in publishing children’s literature) said that for each project, calculations are requested from many printing houses. The cost of printing affects the final price in stores, “further, all important nuances are taken into account,” Oleg Filippov, director of the publishing house, notes: “This is the quality of production, the availability of the necessary paper, the service provided and the price. According to the practice of the current year, we place most of the orders in the Tver printing house.”

The Tver plant mainly produces textbooks, says Pareto-Print CEO Pavel Arseniev: “The state order for them has remained stable, while the output of publications has declined on the commercial market.” On August 10, the Prosveschenie publishing house reported that it had already printed the bulk of the circulation of new history textbooks for high school students with a section on military operations in Ukraine, TASS wrote. History textbooks print seven factories, whose names are not specified.

Julia Yurasova