PRH first-half revenues at €1.5bn

Penguin Random House worldwide generated revenues of €1.5bn (£1.2bn) in the six months to June 2014, Bertelsmann has announced in its first half year results. Bertelsmann does not break results into regions but said the publisher's global revenues were up 63% from the total of $915m (£712m) generated by Random House in the same period the year before, ahead of the merger with Penguin on 1st July 2013. Bertelsmann said highlights for Penguin Random House in the first half of 2014 included John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars selling more than 5.7m copies worldwide between January and June, and the creation of a new corporate logo and ‘brand-identity system’ for the company. Results were ‘driven by strong bestseller performances, especially from its children’s divisions worldwide’. In the UK, Penguin Random House had 45% of the Sunday Times bestseller list, said Bertelsmann, with the company’s biggest selling title being The Fault in Our Stars, while Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck was ‘a major success as well’, according to thebookseller.com