Professional Publishing Journal Revenues Grew 3% In 2010, Simba Report Finds

Online, January 21, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Scientific, technical, medical, legal and business journals - an $8.9 billion market that represents over 20% of the entire professional publishing industry - rebounded and grew at 3% in 2010. Growth will continue at a compound annual rate of 3.3% through 2013, according to Simba Information's latest report "Global Professional Publishing 2009-2010," with medical journals growing faster than any other professional journal segment, just ahead of scientific and technical journals.

Professional journal revenues fell in 2009; but with a recovering economy, stable renewals, price increases, new product offerings from publishers and a slight improvement in advertising, journals have managed to bounce back. Growing demand from users for immediate access to new information, along with fully searchable archives, has been met as publishers moved journals from print to value-added electronic formats.

"Journals are offered in print and electronic formats and are increasingly designed to offer critical content that can be accessed immediately through handheld devices, desktop downloads and computer alerts for physicians," says Dan Strempel, lead author of the report. "Online journals have greater value as they provide searchable archives and instantaneous delivery."

STM journals are seeing the largest growth, but also face turbulence in the years to come. These publishers will have to compete against electronic information tools and will be challenged by the continued proliferation of open access journals and international piracy. In addition, library acquisition budgets are expected to be somewhat stagnant in the period, making growth harder to come by. Medical journals will be further challenged by new pharma advertising strategies that seem to be moving dollars out of journals.

"Medical journals have a much more varied range of revenue drivers, including communications in the form of advertising, supplements and bulk reprints, which make up a large portion of revenue," said Strempel. "Pressure on display advertising could wind up being offset by increases in classifieds, supplements and reprints."

"Global Professional Publishing 2009-2010" provides a comprehensive, analytical look at the overall landscape of the global markets for legal, business, scientific, technical and medical information, breaking down each market segment by books, journals, newsletters, directories, online services and abstracting & indexing. Company profiles include key players Reed Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, Springer Science+Business, Wolters Kluwer and others. It is available at: http://www.simbainformation.com/redirect.asp?progid=80314&productid=2071791.