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German print industry revenue statistics: where the numbers actually live
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Where do German print industry revenue statistics actually come from?
Germany has no single national portal page dedicated to printing revenue the way the US Census Bureau serves NAICS 32311, so the figures you can actually quote come from an industry federation and from European statistical programs. The German-specific source is bvdm — Bundesverband Druck und Medien (German Print & Media Federation), headquartered at Markgrafenstrasse 15 in Berlin with eight regional Landesverbaende. Its Druckindustrie portal publishes headline sector numbers, its annual Branchenbericht (the 2024 edition runs 59 pages) tabulates revenue, employment and productivity indicators, and its charts credit "Statistisches Bundesamt, Berechnungen BVDM" with data-stand dates such as April 2026.
How big is the German print industry in euros?
bvdm's Branchenportal estimates EUR 18.3 billion in revenue for 2025 across about 6,000 predominantly small and mid-sized companies, with roughly 95,000 employees in print and media and EUR 3.8 billion of print and publishing exports in 2025. Those four numbers are the ones German trade coverage quotes, and they are freely downloadable without registration.
The official statistical series tells the structural story behind them. Eurostat's sbs_na_ind_r2 table records German NACE C18 turnover of EUR 21,629.2 million in 2010, EUR 18,193.7 million in 2015 and EUR 16,088.8 million in 2020 — a decline of roughly a quarter over the decade, which is why any revenue figure you cite needs its reference year attached. The successor dataset sbs_ovw_act extends the frame to 2024 at EU level, where C18 enterprises fell from 102,811 in 2021 to 99,822 in 2024 and persons employed from 555,000 to 522,000. One caveat worth carrying into any writeup: the Branchenbericht's indicator tables are built from Statistisches Bundesamt data for establishments with 50 or more employees, so its 2023 row shows 444 firms and 55,748 employees on EUR 10,145 million nominal revenue — a deliberately narrower circle than the 6,000-company headline.
What does the bvdm Branchenbericht actually contain?
The Branchenbericht is the closest thing Germany has to an annual print sector yearbook — about 60 pages covering the prior calendar year, published as a free PDF with no registration. The 2024 edition (Branchenbericht_2024_BVDM.pdf, 1.1 MB, verified HTTP 200) sits under the site's Downloads_Wirtschaft directory, and its first table is the one revenue analysts work from:
| Branchenbericht indicator (German) | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Ø Anzahl der Betriebe | Average number of firms in the print and media industry, with year-over-year change |
| Ø Anzahl der Beschäftigten | Average employees, with year-over-year percent change |
| Umsatz nominal / Inlandsumsatz / Auslandsumsatz | Revenue in EUR millions split into total, domestic and foreign |
| Anteil Auslandsumsatz | Export share of total nominal revenue, percent |
| Umsatz je Beschäftigten / je Arbeitsstunde | Revenue per employee and per hour worked |
| Entgelte / Lohnquote | Total compensation and its share of nominal revenue (wage ratio, percent) |
| Geleistete Arbeitsstunden | Hours worked, thousands |
Every row is benchmarked against all of Verarbeitendes Gewerbe (manufacturing), which turns a sector snapshot into a relative-performance read. The 2023 row — 444 firms, 55,748 employees, EUR 10,145 million nominal revenue of which EUR 8,690 million domestic and EUR 1,455 million foreign, and a 22.0 percent wage ratio — is attributed "Statistisches Bundesamt, Berechnungen BVDM". Content is German throughout, so expect to translate before quoting.
Which Eurostat datasets put Germany in a European context?
If the question is "how does German printing compare with France or Poland", Eurostat is the efficient answer, and it is free under commercial delivery terms 4.0. Two datasets matter:
For discovery beyond the two flagship tables, data.europa.eu — EU open data portal aggregates about 1.77 million metadata records from 210 catalogues in 36 countries, and roughly 9,000 of them match the keyword 'printing' — the right first stop before committing to any single national source.
How do you build a German print revenue series in an afternoon?
A defensible Germany-only workflow, using only free sources in this slice:
Pick up where this leaves off
Every one of these ships with sample rows before you commit to anything.
bvdm — Bundesverband Druck und Medien (German Print & Media Federation)
Eurostat Structural Business Statistics for NACE C18
Eurostat PRODCOM Manufacturing Output (Printing Products)
Druck & Medien — German Printing Industry News Portal
date · category · headline …+3 more
data.europa.eu — EU Open Data Portal for Commercial Printing
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Where can I find German print industry revenue statistics?
Start with bvdm (Bundesverband Druck und Medien), which publishes the annual Branchenbericht PDF, the monthly BVDM-Konjunkturtelegramm business-climate index and Destatis-derived price series back to 2000, estimating 2025 sector revenue at EUR 18.3 billion across about 6,000 companies. Eurostat's NACE C18 structural business statistics add the official country comparison, recording German turnover of EUR 16,088.8 million for 2020.
How large is the German printing industry?
bvdm estimates EUR 18.3 billion in revenue for 2025, about 6,000 predominantly small and mid-sized companies, roughly 95,000 employees in print and media, and EUR 3.8 billion of print and publishing exports in 2025. The Branchenbericht's narrower indicator tables, built from Destatis data for establishments with 50 or more employees, show 444 firms and EUR 10,145 million nominal revenue for 2023.