Weltbild

Weltbild Publishing Group (German: Verlagsgruppe Weltbild) was a major German publisher and media retailer based in Augsburg. It was partner of the holding company DBH Deutsche Buch Handels GmbH & Co. KG and itself it is owned by the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church of Germany. The name Weltbild roughly translates to "worldview". Since 2001, Weltbild had had a joint venture with OZ-Verlag in the magazine sector (Living & More GmbH, Offenburg). There were also 50/50 joint ventures with the Belgian media company Belgomedia (Bayard Presse, France, and Roularta Media, Belgium). Weltbild published magazines in the Parenting and Family, 40-plus/50-plus, and Home and Garden segments. In fiscal 2007/2008, Weltbild sold its entire magazine division to the French Bayard Group. As of 2006, Weltbild claims to be Germany's largest media and mail-order company, with a market share of ten percent. It also says it is No. 2 among online book retailers (presumably after Amazon.de). Weltbild employs some 6,400 employees and has a revenue of 1,7 billion EUR. According to the enterprise, some 5,5 million customers in the German-speaking countries buy Weltbild books by mail order, in one of the 300 Weltbild shops or over the Internet. Its mail-order catalogue has a print run of four million.