Ukrainian Book Publishing Market Shows Significant Growth in First Half of 2025
According to the Ukrainian Institute of Books, the first six months of 2025 have marked a notable transformation in Ukraine’s book publishing industry, illustrating substantial growth compared to the same period in the previous year.
Specifically, the total output of printed works and visual publications increased by 25% in titles and by 37% in print runs.
This upward trend was also reflected in the linguistic composition of published materials, with Ukrainian-language editions increasing from 87.54% to 89.75% in titles, and from 93.14% to 95.40% in print volumes.
The children’s books and illustrated editions segment, especially picture books, experienced a slower growth rate, which aligns with feedback from specialized publishers.
Furthermore, in the first half of 2025, 50 new companies registered under the NACE code 58.11 ‘Book publishing,’ surpassing the 41 registered in the same period of 2024.
However, the sector of retail book trade faced more challenges: only 32 new stores opened in 2025 against 77 closures, indicating a decline and potential crisis in the sector.
Notably, seven entrepreneurs who opened stores in 2024 have already closed them in 2025, signaling instability.
It is also relevant that since March 2022, sanctions against several Russian publishing houses, including ‘Eksmo,’ ‘AST,’ ‘Piter,’ and others, have been lifted.
These companies had been on Ukrainian sanction lists since March 19, 2019, due to their distribution of anti-Ukrainian content.
The termination of sanctions may pose new challenges for the Ukrainian book market, who now faces increased competition from previously restricted Russian publishers.