Springer Nature revenues up as profit climbed 12% in 2021

Springer Nature’s revenue grew 4.5% to €1.7bn (£1.5bn) in 2021 while adjusted operating profit climbed 12%, the company has revealed in its first ever annual progress report.

Revenue rose from €1.63bn (£1.4bn) in 2020, but was marginally down on 2019’s €1.72bn (£1.5bn). Adjusted operating profit increased to €443m (£387m) from €396m (£346m) the year before and €411m (£360m) in 2019, attributed to “strong revenue growth and careful cost management adopted in response to the economic uncertainties caused by the pandemic”.

In Research, revenue was up 4% to €1.31bn (£1.1bn) from €1.26bn (£1.1bn) in 2020. Education revenues were €184m (£161m), up from €176m (£154m) in 2020 but a 28% fall from the €257m (£225m) recorded in 2019. For its Professional business, revenues stood at €211m (£184m), up from 2020’s €194m (£170m) and level with the 2019 figure.

The company said its underlying revenue growth for 2021 was 6.5%. In Research, underlying revenue growth was around 5%, “well ahead of market growth and that of most of our competitors”. Education and Professional segments showed “strong recovery and underlying growth”, the company said.

Springer Nature’s report, published on 6th October, contains a number of key figures. According to the firm, there were more than seven million article and book chapter downloads per day on its platforms – more than 2.6 billion in total in 2021, up over 10% on 2020. Fully Open Access (OA) articles were cited on average more than seven times, with citations from all OA articles growing by 50% between 2017 and 2020.

The report states that €120m (£105m) was invested in 2021 for technology to improve and speed up the publishing experience, ensure research integrity is protected, and misinformation is tackled. More than €18m (£16m) was waived in fees in 2021 for researchers in financial need and there was increased investment in initiatives that support commitment to be carbon net zero by 2040.

An additional €5m (£4.4m) was invested in staff training and development, along with an expanded diversity, equality and inclusion programme, data collection for better progress monitoring, and new employee networks. 

Frank Vrancken Peeters, c.e.o. of Springer Nature, said: “Researchers, teachers, students and clinicians all rely on us to provide them with trusted information, and in the case of our authors, place in our care their most valuable resource. We have a clear mission to open doors to discovery and are committed to holding ourselves to account on how we are delivering against this. I am proud of the progress we are making for our many communities, our planet and our people. We continue to see downloads and citations grow for researchers who publish with us, while offering increasing value for money to authors and librarians.”