Penguin Random House Editorial Group reformulates its book distribution strategy. The Spanish company, the division for Iberia and Latin America of the German giant Bertelsmann, is in the process of digesting the growth of recent years and opened a new logistics center in Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona) on Monday to centralize its entire operation in Spain. The work is the spearhead of a plan endowed with 60 million euros which encompasses both the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America.
The CEO of the Organization, Núria Cabutí, explains electionomista.es The details of the plan, which is already in progress. “One of the pillars of the development of our business right now is the distribution to be able to reach the final reader more quickly and effectively,” he says. “That is why we are also investing in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Chile simultaneously, either with new logistics centers or remodeling what we already have,” he describes.
The company distributes from each location to the local market, although the Catalan infrastructure will also serve to send books to countries like the United States. Therefore, the installation is the largest of all and the one that takes the largest budget item, with 36 million euros of investment and 42,000 square meters of surface. “It will allow us to distribute up to 160,000 daily references, double our current capacity, and face picos of up to 340,000 books in one day,” Cabutí celebrates. In total, 40 million books will be able to leave the center every year address libraries.
The new HUB It will centralize operations in Spain and use 130 people who, along with several tens of robots, work in three shifts of eight hours and close almost 8,500 boxes every day, which leave around a dozen trucks to be distributed mainly by the bookstores of Spain.
“Our will is to go to a potential market of 600 million Spanish speakers,” he summarizes. The company does so through the 61 stamps available, among which Editions B, Alfaguara, Debolsillo or Sum of Letters stand out. The firm remains open to acquire other publishers, as with editorial rock in autumn of 2023.
Exceeds 400 million billing
Purchases – eight in a decade – and the development of their own brands have been the company’s growth engine in recent years. In 2024, explains the leader, Penguin reached 410 million euros of billing with the sale of 57 million books. In 2022, the business figure was 351 million euros and 35 million books. “By 2025 we hope to continue growing,” he adds.
The Spanish market grew last year to 9% rhythm and the forecast is that the rise is maintained. The trend is widespread. Thus, Planet Corporation, for example, increased sales by 8% in 2023. “We think it will also grow in Latin America, so we are optimistic, more with all the promotion work we are doing,” he abounds. “Also the United States market is very important and in Central America they are increasingly buying us more books,” he says.
Penguin is a subsidiary of the German conglomerate Bertelsmann, which until September registered sales of 13.4 billion euros, 8.4% less than in the same period of 2023. The company will publish next week its financial results for the entire year 2024, but in the last quarterly it already anticipated that the fall was due to the sale of Majorel in November 2023 The rise was 3.1%. In addition to the editorial group, the German giant also controls the BMG record label and the RTL media company, the largest in Europe.
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