Press Release | Gütersloh, 05/15/2025

Bertelsmann Grows Its Revenues to €4.5bn in First Quarter of 2025

• Revenue growth at around 3 percent
• Progress on all strategic priorities
• Forecast for full year confirmed
• Thomas Rabe: “The year has got off to a promising start.”

Gütersloh, May 15, 2025 – Bertelsmann has started the 2025 financial year with a good first quarter. Despite the challenging global economic environment, the international media, services, and education company grew its first-quarter revenues by 2.9 percent to €4.5 billion (prior-year quarter: €4.3 billion). Organic growth was 1.8 percent. This positive performance was driven by Penguin Random House, Arvato Group, Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments.

Bertelsmann Chairman & CEO Thomas Rabe said: “The year has got off to a promising start. Thanks to its broad business and geographic positioning, Bertelsmann can look back on a good first quarter with continued revenue growth. The investments in our Boost strategy are increasingly making themselves felt.”

Highlights from the divisions

RTL Group recorded revenues of €1.4 billion in the first quarter of 2025, including RTL Nederland. The number of paying subscribers to the group’s streaming services increased by 17.4 percent to 8.7 million. In January, Deutsche Telekom and RTL Deutschland announced that they were renewing their existing cooperation, which began at the end of 2020, through 2030. In March, RTL Deutschland announced the sale of its magazine brands Brigitte, Gala, and Eltern to Funke Mediengruppe.

Penguin Random House (PRH) achieved successes with its new releases, led by Mel Robbins’ "The Let Them Theory," which sold more than 1.2 million copies globally in the first quarter. Other best-selling titles included Ali Hazelwood’s "Deep End" in the U.S., Jennie Godfrey's "The List of Suspicious Things" in the UK, and Ildefonso Falcones' latest book "En el Amor y en la Guerra," in Spain. James Clear's "Atomic Habits" continues to be a long-selling global favorite. January saw the publication of Pope Francis' autobiography "Hope," which PRH publishes worldwide in English, Spanish, and German.

BMG unveiled a comprehensive brand refresh. To further expand its range of services, BMG merged its sync and production music teams into a global Sync Services structure, offering clients a more streamlined and efficient repertoire licensing solution. BMG artists Fantasy celebrated their fourth consecutive No. 1 album in Germany, while Francesco Gabbani topped the charts in Italy.

The Arvato Group’s logistics division acquired the third-party logistics provider Carbel in the U.S. This strategic move massively expands Arvato’s footprint in the growth market of e-commerce services for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle providers in the U.S.

Bertelsmann Marketing Services recorded satisfactory capacity utilization at its illustration and book printing businesses in Germany and the U.S. The marketing businesses in the direct marketing and agency market continued to feel the effects of restrained customer demand. DeutschlandCard underwent a strategic realignment to become a commerce media platform for personalized direct-to-consumer marketing.

The Bertelsmann Education Group continued to grow dynamically. Afya, the leading Brazilian university group for medical education and training, once again significantly increased the number of medical students to around 26,000. Relias further expanded its digital platform for advanced training as well as HR and compliance management solutions in the healthcare sector in the U.S. and Germany. Alliant International University increased its student count, especially in the area of mental health.

Bertelsmann Investments (BI) held 385 investments worldwide as of March 31, 2025, following 6 new and 7 follow-on investments in the first quarter of 2025. Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) in particular made several follow-on investments, including in Skeps, a loan brokerage company, and Agrostar, a trading platform for agricultural inputs in India. The division’s Next unit experienced strong organic growth, driven primarily by the Applike Group. At the beginning of January, BI announced the completion of its acquisition of the learning platform Vocanto, and in April the founding of the pharma tech holding company Cormeo.

Rolf Hellermann, Chief Financial Officer of Bertelsmann, said: “We’ve had a good first quarter in 2025, and can confirm our outlook for the full year. We continue to expect a moderate increase in the revenues and earnings of our existing businesses.”

About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is a media, services and education company with about 75,000 employees that operates in some 50 countries around the world. It includes the entertainment group RTL Group, the trade book publisher Penguin Random House, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato Group, Bertelsmann Marketing Services, the Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds. The company generated revenues of €19 billion in the 2024 financial year. Bertelsmann stands for creativity and entrepreneurship. This combination promotes first-class media content and innovative service solutions that inspire customers around the world.