John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY): 5 FORCES Analysis [Nov-2025 Updated]

You're looking for a clear-eyed view of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s competitive position, and honestly, the publishing world is in a chaotic transition right now, so let's map out the five forces using fresh FY2025 data.

As an analyst who's seen a few industry shakeups, I can tell you that John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is navigating a genuine pressure cooker; even with reported revenue hitting $1,678 million in FY2025, the core question is whether its established moat can withstand the Open Access shift and AI disruption. We need to see how the power of authors and library consortia is shaping up against the $40 million they pulled in from AI licensing-a clear defensive play that shows they aren't just waiting for the tide to turn. Dive below for my full breakdown of the five forces, mapping out the near-term risks and where John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is actually building its next competitive edge.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of suppliers

You are looking at the supplier side of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s business, which is dominated by the creators of specialized academic and professional content. The power here is a tug-of-war between the necessity of that content and the publisher's ability to lock in long-term contracts.

Authors and researchers definitely hold sway, largely because of the academic world's 'publish or perish' environment. John Wiley & Sons faces a supplier landscape that is concentrated, relying on approximately 250,000 academic researchers and subject matter experts globally as of 2024. This dependency is structural: 87% of academic publications rely on external researchers, and 92% of professional content needs input from industry experts. That's a significant reliance on a relatively small pool of high-value individuals.

The financial commitment to secure this content is substantial, reflecting the specialized nature of the supply. Here's a quick look at the investment John Wiley & Sons makes per manuscript in the initial stages:

To be fair, the cost varies by specialty, which can give suppliers in high-demand fields more leverage. For instance, medical research publications average a manuscript cost of $29,500.

Scholarly societies are an increasingly powerful supplier group, especially with the shift toward Open Access (OA). John Wiley & Sons is actively managing this by building out services to become a paid technology supplier to societies via its Wiley Partner Solutions, which helps mitigate the risk associated with traditional profit-sharing models. Under those older models, a publisher might have to cover a minimum royalty guarantee; for example, a $1 million guarantee on a 50% royalty split means the publisher must net at least $2 million in revenue from that society's journals. The market is moving, though; Open Access continues to see double-digit growth as of the Fiscal 2025 reporting period.

However, John Wiley & Sons retains an advantage through the high switching costs associated with its established, high-impact journal titles. These titles form a sticky base of recurring revenue, making it difficult for institutions to walk away. The Journal Publishing group alone generated $922.5 million in revenue for the full Fiscal Year 2025, showing the scale of this content base. Furthermore, the company's contract liability, which represents future revenue from existing agreements, was approximately $479.4 million as of April 30, 2025.

The reliance on this specialized content means John Wiley & Sons' revenue is directly tied to the output of these experts. The strength of the supplier group is evident in the continued growth seen in the Research segment, which increased 3% in Fiscal Year 2025.

The key supplier dynamics include:

• Authors/researchers hold moderate power due to the 'publish or perish' culture.
• Scholarly societies are gaining power via Open Access mandates.
• The publisher's advantage rests on high switching costs for institutional buyers.
• Full Year Fiscal 2025 Research revenue grew by 3%.
• Journal Publishing group sales reached $922.5 million in Fiscal 2025.
• Remaining Performance Obligations stood at $479.4 million on April 30, 2025.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) - Porter's Five Forces: Bargaining power of customers

You're looking at John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s institutional customers, primarily academic libraries, and their ability to push back on pricing and terms. Honestly, for the big players, that power is significant, especially when they band together.

Academic libraries use consortia purchasing to negotiate large 'big deals.' These bundled agreements, covering vast journal portfolios, represent the primary lever for institutional buyers. For instance, the Big Ten Academic Alliance previously leveraged its position to secure open access publishing options for its authors with John Wiley & Sons. Similarly, German consortia, like Projekt DEAL, have historically used the threat of cancellation to secure new terms, including open access provisions.

The financial strain on these institutions directly translates into increased bargaining power. We saw this pressure acutely in the UK market as of early 2025. Here's the quick math on that leverage:

Universities are also vertically integrating via library publishing and Open Access initiatives. This move is a strategic effort to gain control over scholarly output and reduce reliance on commercial intermediaries like John Wiley & Sons. The rise of models like Diamond Open Access, where journals charge neither readers nor authors, is a direct challenge to the established subscription/APC (Article Publication Charge) structure. John Wiley & Sons itself is adapting, piloting APC discounts based on Purchasing Power Index for authors in 33 Latin American countries starting January 2025.

For John Wiley & Sons, the customer base is heavily skewed toward these large entities. As of the fiscal year ended April 30, 2025, 83% of Adjusted Revenue came from digital and online products, with a significant portion tied to recurring subscriptions and institutional partnerships. Furthermore, 48% of Adjusted Revenue for that same fiscal year was recurring, highlighting the importance of these long-term institutional contracts.

Individual customers have low power, but their demand drives institutional subscriptions. While a single researcher or student has minimal leverage over a multi-million dollar institutional contract, the aggregate demand from these end-users is what justifies the institutional spend in the first place. The Research segment's growth, which includes digital publishing services for universities and libraries, saw revenue rise 6.2% in Q1 FY2026 (three months ended July 31, 2025).

The bargaining power dynamic can be summarized by the shift in spending focus:

• Academic libraries use consortia purchasing to negotiate large 'big deals.'
• 60% of UK university libraries considered dropping big deals, increasing leverage.
• Universities are vertically integrating via library publishing and Open Access initiatives.
• Individual customers have low power, but their demand drives institutional subscriptions.

The pressure is clear: institutions are seeking price reductions, such as the 5 to 15 per cent reduction sought by UK universities on their £112 million annual spend with the Big Five publishers whose deals expire at the end of 2025.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) - Porter's Five Forces: Competitive rivalry

You see the competitive landscape for John Wiley & Sons, Inc. as intensely contested, especially in the Research segment. Rivalry is high with major players like Elsevier and Springer Nature. To give you a sense of scale, Springer Nature reported nine-month 2025 revenue of €1,428.7 million, showing underlying growth of 5.9% in that period. Elsevier remains the largest commercial publisher in scholarly communication.

Competition is definitely heating up because of the industry-wide pivot from print to digital, subscription, and Open Access (OA) models. The OA journal publishing market itself hit $2.1 billion in 2024 and analysts project it to reach $3.2 billion by 2028. This shift forces John Wiley & Sons, Inc. to constantly adjust its content delivery and pricing structures.

For the full year ended April 30, 2025, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s reported revenue was $1,678 million, which was a reported decrease of -10.4% compared to the prior year, largely due to foregone revenue from divested businesses. However, on an adjusted basis, excluding divestitures, the growth was +3% at constant currency, showing underlying business momentum, albeit slow.

Here's a quick look at how the segments performed in the context of this rivalry:

• Research segment revenue increased 3% for the full year FY2025.
• Total AI licensing revenue for FY2025 was $40 million.
• Q4 Research Publishing revenue grew by +4% at constant currency.
• Adjusted Operating Income for the full year FY2025 was up 29%.

The competition also plays out through securing large, multi-institutional agreements. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is actively competing with recurring revenue agreements in key international markets. During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the company executed two landmark recurring revenue agreements:

These deals are critical for locking in future revenue streams against competitors vying for the same institutional budgets. You can see the full-year financial context below:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of substitutes

The threat of substitutes for John Wiley & Sons, Inc. remains substantial, driven by the ongoing digital transformation across academic and professional markets. You need to look closely at how much of the market is moving away from traditional paid content models.

Open Access (OA) models, especially 'diamond OA,' are a significant, growing threat.

• Research Segment revenue increased 3% in Q4 Fiscal 2025, driven by solid growth in recurring models and open access.
• The company realized total AI licensing revenue of $40 million in Fiscal 2025.
• John Wiley & Sons, Inc. secured a third major customer for LLM model training.

Open Education Resources (OER) and free digital courseware substitute traditional textbooks.

The Learning segment shows this substitution dynamic clearly, as digital adoption accelerates.

Self-publishing platforms and online content dilute the value proposition of traditional professional books.

• Professional group sales were flat at $251 million in FY2025, citing soft retail market conditions.
• Approximately 49% of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s consolidated revenue for the year ended April 30, 2025, was generated from outside the United States.

Generative AI models pose a long-term threat by synthesizing and replacing some content.

The speed of adoption by end-users shows the potential for content replacement, even as John Wiley & Sons, Inc. monetizes its data via licensing.

• 73.6% of surveyed students/researchers use AI in education.
• 51% of those users employ AI for literature reviews.
• 88% of students used generative AI for assessments (up from 53% in 2024).
• John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s AI licensing revenue increased to $40 million in FY2025 from $23 million in FY2024.

If onboarding takes 14+ days, churn risk rises.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (WLY) - Porter's Five Forces: Threat of new entrants

The threat of new entrants into John Wiley & Sons, Inc.'s core academic publishing business remains low, frankly. This is largely due to the entrenched, high-cost infrastructure required to operate credibly in that space. You can't just spin up a journal and expect instant trust; that trust is earned over decades.

The peer-review infrastructure is a massive, non-transferable asset. Building a system that researchers globally respect enough to submit their career-defining work to-and that institutions will pay for-takes immense time and institutional capital. It's a classic high-barrier-to-entry scenario for any newcomer trying to challenge the established scientific record.

Building a trusted platform like Wiley Online Library requires a capital outlay that scares off most potential competitors. That platform supports massive reach, with one data point showing 170 million visitors from 239 countries under a specific licensing agreement, demonstrating the scale of the necessary digital investment. That kind of digital footprint doesn't appear overnight. It's a moat built with continuous, heavy spending.

Here's a quick look at the financial scale of the segments that create these barriers:

The Learning segment, however, faces a different dynamic. New EdTech companies and digital platforms pose a higher threat here. These entrants often target specific skill gaps with more agile, subscription-based models that can undercut traditional textbook or courseware pricing structures. They don't carry the legacy overhead of print or older digital systems.

Still, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is actively defending its data real estate. Their focus on generative AI content licensing shows they are monetizing their established content assets against new entrants. They realized total AI licensing revenue of $40 million in Fiscal 2025, which is a clear signal of defensiveness in the data space. That revenue stream helps fund the necessary platform modernization to keep pace with those nimbler EdTech competitors.

The barriers are high in research, but the learning field is definitely more porous.