Thanks to institutional subscriptions, commercial scientific publishers operate a lucrative market. How lucrative? Spectacularly so. A brief thread focusing on Elsevier, for reasons that will become clear. (1/n) @ElsevierConnect
In 2019, Elsevier made a profit of £982 million (out of r £2.6 billion revenue). Is that a big profit? In dollars, it’s $1.2 billion. In euros, €1.1 billion. It’s a big number, but maybe it’s okay? (2/n)
Source: relx.com/investors/annu…
To judge a profit, divide it by revenue, to obtain “net margin”. Elsevier’s is 982/2,637, which is… 37%. Twice as profitable as Google! No industry is so profitable. The top is banking at 31%. Pharma is at 18%. Tobacco: 17%. Oil 9%. Alcohol 8%. (3/n)