12 Top Porn Companies in the World: Famous Adult Brands, Porn Industry Leaders

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Ever wondered who owns your favorite porn site?

We’ve all heard of XVideos and Pornhub, but who are the porn companies that reap their profits?

The porn industry is one of the most lucrative markets in the world and generates almost $100 billion each year; that’s more than the GDP of Panama and Slovenia combined.

Much of the adult industry is owned by holding companies focusing on making money away from the spotlight. These companies ensure the businesses remain legitimate and act within the laws of the countries in which they operate while also providing the X-rated entertainment that keeps us coming back for more.

Sites like AdultTime, XVideos and Pornhub might be household porn brands, but could you name the companies behind them? Maybe you’ve heard of the largest: MindGeek and WGCZ Holdings. As we’ll see below, the top porn companies like to keep their behind-the-scenes operations separate from the glitz and tits.

In this guide, we uncover 12 of the largest porn companies in the world today. We’ll look at what they earn and how. From DVDs to print media, online tube sites to sex toys and merchandising, the adult entertainment industry is thriving.

Who dominates the market? Let’s take a closer look…

What Are The Top 12 Porn Companies In The World?

Top Porn Companies

The 12 top porn companies in the world are listed below: 

  1. MindGeek
  2. WGCZ Holdings
  3. Larry Flynt Publications
  4. Playboy Enterprises
  5. Hammy Media Limited
  6. Core Magazine
  7. AVN Media Network
  8. Hokuto Corporation
  9. Vivid Entertainment
  10. Gamma Entertainment
  11. Evil Angel
  12. Beate Uhse UG

We’ve shortlisted each porn company based on its standing in the adult industry, revenue, and combined site traffic (across multiple adult websites). These companies often wield significant power over the smaller players, so we have also considered their influence.

Below, we explore the most successful porn companies in the world today, starting with the biggest of them all:

1. MindGeek / Aylo

https://www.aylo.com

MindGeek Aylo porn companies

MindGeek (formerly Manwin, and now Aylo) is a tech company that manages some of the most popular adult sites on the net. It’s listed as a tech company because it offers search engine marketing, social media services, and hosting along with its media content delivery, which is the bit that includes porn.

Founded in 2004, MindGeek covers all genres of adult entertainment, including straight and gay sites, with many top brand names among them. You won’t necessarily see ‘MindGeek’ mentioned on these sites. Still, the company keeps the sites afloat and ensures they deliver cutting-edge adult entertainment synonymous with the MindGeek brand.

In the straight-porn world, their top sites, studios and brands include:

Their top gay sites include:

MindGeek is based in Luxemburg but uses Canada as the base for its porn operation. It has offices in Bucharest, Nicosia (Cyprus), London, Montreal and Los Angeles. The placing of its businesses is strategic because there are tax advantages to being registered in certain countries, and Cyprus is a good example. This isn’t anything shady; many large corporations do this, and it’s all legitimate.

Companies such as MindGeek are constantly in flux, and revenue has gone up and down over the years. However:

  • MindGeek’s estimated annual revenue is currently $288.3M per year. 
  • MindGeek’s estimated revenue per employee is $211,179 p/a.
  • In 2012, its value was estimated at $740 million; now, it is much more.

Most MindGeek employees work at the headquarters on Décarie Boulevard in Montreal, but we’re talking office-based staff. Individual porn sites have their own team and freelance models and crews, and they are not direct employees of MindGeek. 

  • As of August 2023, MindGeek employed 1,365 permanent staff. 
  • MindGeek reduced its employee count by 7% last year.

Being a tech company, MindGeek offers a variety of services, and its porn empire falls under its Media Content Delivery wing. If you check their website, you will see they don’t focus on their porn site services, financing and delivery but on their technical services such as hosting and advertising.

MindGeek has not been without its controversy. For example, in 2022, its CEO, Feras Antoon, and its COO, David Tassillo, resigned their posts following an expose by the New Yorker that included allegations that Pornhub had hosted non-consensual sex videos.

In March 2023, MindGeek changed its name to Aylo, stating it was a “response to the need for a fresh start and a renewed commitment to innovation, diverse and inclusive adult content, and trust and safety.” 

In the same year, it was acquired by the Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, who stated, “We have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation of trust, safety and compliance… We have a unique opportunity to strengthen what already exists.” [Fady Mansour, founding partner, ECP.]

Mindgeek (now Aylo) is ideally placed to dominate the adult industry for years. It’s home to some of the world’s most famous porn producers and porn studios — not to mention the most famous porn site in the world.

2. WGCZ Holdings

WGVZ Holdings Porn Production companies

WGCZ Holdings is the holding company behind many well-known porn sites, and it is widely thought of as MindGeek’s principal competitor. The two have filed various legal actions against each other, and both are considered the top players in the porn business. WGCZ’s top two sites, XVideos and XNXX attract over 8 billion views per month, more than Twitter and Netflix.

However, the chances are, you won’t have heard of them. That’s hardly surprising because following the trail to WGCZ is long, complicated, and ultimately futile.

For example, WGCZ is registered in Prague and owns XNXX, one of the top five porn tubes on the net. XNXX, however, is listed as a VLab Ltd property (of Hong Kong and/or Vietnam, depending on what you read). XNXX is also listed as owned by NKL Associates, and if you head to their website, you are told access is forbidden. The same applies if you try and find wgcz.com itself. Although based in the Czech Republic, WGCZ is a Polish company, and the servers of XNXX and some of its other sites are held in Amsterdam and America.

Following this? Nope, we’re pretty lost too.

We’re not saying there’s anything underhand about this near-impossible paper trail. Staying beneath the wire is common for significant companies making big bucks from porn, but what happens at the porn-user end matters. You will have heard of Penthouse, and WGCZ took over Penthouse Global Media in 2018. It also acquired Private Media in 2020, and these are just two of its adult sites. Others include or have included:

According to the WGCZ financial report 2019 (the most recent available), the company had a net revenue of €2,347,410 and a subscribed capital of 2M CZK (90M USD).

It’s impossible to say what it’s earning now, but with those top sites under its belt, you can bet it’s not doing badly. XVideos has an average of over 160 million monthly users in Europe alone. Although it offers free registration, there are plenty of adverts and pay-for services to bring in revenue. When you add the estimated $71M per year from Penthouse and other popular sites like BangBros, you understand how big and rich WGCZ is. The last estimate put it as being worth over $300 million.

Some insiders speculate that a pair of French twins own WGCZ, Stephanie Michael Pacaud and Deborah Malorie Pacaud, who once turned down an offer of $120 million for Xvideos. Who these people are, however, remains a mystery.

3. Larry Flynt Publications

Larry Flynt's Hustler porn brand

In 1972, Larry Flynt created the first Hustler Magazine, four black and white pages focusing on news about his Hustler Clubs. Several decades later, Larry Flynt Publications is now estimated to be worth over $500 million.

Known from the start for its use of glamorous women in erotic photography and now, in hardcore porn, the Larry Flynt Publications (LFP Inc) empire incorporates:

  • Print magazines
  • Strip clubs
  • Adult movie studios
  • Hustler stores
  • Porn sites

Larry Flynt Publications is a far more transparent organization than WGCZ, with a more straightforward path to its core business model. It’s much easier to see that it is a company that moves with the times, adding adult video production to its business in the 1990s when subscriptions for print magazines started to decline, and from there to porn sites, which have become the principal source of revenue.

Regarding household names, it’s easy to put Hustler and Playboy in the same sentence, and Playboy Enterprises remains one of LFP’s biggest competitors.

The LFP Inc organization has a raft of enterprises on its list, including:

Hustler is still the top-name brand managed and owned by FLP Inc. The website has grown to become a network of 18 adult sites, including:

  • Hustler’s Taboo
  • Anal Hookers
  • Busty Beauties
  • Hustlaz
  • Hustler Parodies

Larry Flynt Publications has its corporate offices in Beverly Hills, California. Although only about 44 people work there, the tentacles of the empire reach far and wide, with the clubs, studios, shops and sites giving employment to hundreds more.

  • Approximately 60% of the company’s revenue comes from print sales.
  • In 1998, global sales of its various products reached $135 million.
  • The organization now publishes 30 magazines, with Hustler still being the most famous.

Larry began his life in the adult business with $1,800 in savings and died in 2021 after living a career full of incidents. He ran unsuccessfully for political office, fought several high-profile legal battles involving the first amendment, and survived an assassination attempt in 1978, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. 

He was portrayed on the silver screen by Woody Harelson in 1996 and was once named the number one most powerful man in porn by Arena Magazine. Larry has left a legacy that Larry Flynt Publications continues to this day.

4. Playboy Enterprises / PLBY Group

https://www.plbygroup.com

Playboy Group

Like Larry Flynt Publications, Playboy Enterprises (now called PLBY Group) started with erotic photos. Unlike LFP Inc, it began in 1953 when Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine hit the shelves with Marilyn Monroe as its centerfold. Playboy has now steamrollered the competition to become one of the biggest names in adult entertainment.

Big, but different.

Where we find MindGeek and others running massive free porn tube sites and what you might call blatant hardcore sites, Playboy is more subtle and brings style, class and tradition to the table. It’s known for its high-end productions featuring top stars, and its online porn is more glamorous than most. This is why you often think of it in the same sentence as Hustler.

You’ll still see Playboy magazine up there on the top shelf alongside Hustler, and you’ll also see it online because, like its primary competitor, the organization has moved with the times. It’s another easy-to-examine, transparent company with nothing to hide, and unlike WGCZ, much of its corporate information is available online. Much, but not all.

Over the years, Playboy has grown beyond its print publications and clubs and now incorporates the following:

  • A publishing group for the magazines
  • An entertainment group to oversee:
    • Spice Network
    • Playboy TV
    • Playboy Online

The PLBY Group went public in 2021, merging with Mountain Crest and adding $100 million in cash thanks to the move. It is still looking to expand and focuses on distribution companies and brands that are ‘Complementary to the Playboy brand,’ so we can expect to see it grow in the future.

PLBY has around 160 employees at its main offices, but because of its subsidiaries and various enterprises, the employee list has climbed to hundreds.

Although PLBY is now listed on the stock market, and thus, its business is open to public scrutiny, its income remains a cause for debate. This is probably because it is required to report each quarter, and income varies through the seasons. Here are some facts:

  • In 2020, PLBY was estimated to have an annual revenue of $147.7 million.
  • In the fiscal year 2022, PLBY’s revenue grew by over 8% to $266.9 million (according to its accounting).

Whatever figures you trust, it’s a vast operation that’s managed to keep its nose clean, apart from some personal allegations against Hugh Hefner and a few scandals at the Playboy Mansion.

Apart from contributors to the famous Playboy Magazine, including notable authors, film stars and celebrities, Playboy Enterprises is instantly recognizable by its little bow-tie bunny logo. This depicts the bunny girls of Hefner’s clubs and has become as famous worldwide as MacDonald’s golden arches.

5. Hammy Media Limited

Hammy Media Limited (owner of XHamster)

You will have heard of, and probably spent time on, xHamster, the 20th-most trafficked website in the world.  But did you know it is owned by a company with the cuddliest name in porn, Hammy Media Ltd

Hammy Media Ltd operates out of Cyprus, a haven for all kinds of tax reasons, and its flagship site is xHamster, the 4th most popular porn site on the net after XVideos, XNXX (owned by WGCZ), and Pornhub (from MindGeek). It’s estimated that xHamster receives more than 1.4 billion hits each month; that’s the same number as the population of China, and no doubt, the Chinese visit the site, but so do people from all over the world.

Hammy Media lists its principal business as advertisements and internet-related services, and its flagship porn site, xHamster, has a website value in the hundreds of millions.

Nice work if you can get it, and Hammy Media does.

The porn company also has other interests, such as the sex doll xHamsterina, live adult cams, and a Belgian-style beer, labelled ‘xHamstrer Beer’, coming in at 8.5% ABV.

The famous tube site, though, remains its core business.

6. Core Magazine

https://cmz.jp

Core Magazines

Core Magazine is a Tokyo-based company that produces Hentai, Manga, Yaoi and adult Magazines. It was founded in 1985 and still thrives as one of Japan’s leading adult companies, providing online adult entertainment and printed material through numerous bookshops and websites. 

As well as catering to straight Manga and Hentai porn lovers, it has the ‘Boys Love’ series of gay comics.

Core Magazine produces 17 magazines, some with electronic (online) versions, and among its most popular are:

  • Comic Hotmilk
  • Comic Megastore
  • Drap (gay)

Core Magazine has five adult online stores:

  • Bunka Taboo
  • Bunka
  • Drap (gay)
  • Core Comics
  • Core New Books

Punters buy each publication separately rather than signing up to a membership site for downloads.

The cost of Core Magazine’s publications varies. An average price for a 290-page adult comic in the Hotmilk Heavy range costs 660 yen ($4.54), and its gay manga eBooks sell for around 400 yen ($3.00).

All this proves that a company can make millions from a specialist, niche market. In the case of Core Magazine, that’s Manga, Hentai and Yaoi.

7. AVN Media Network

https://avnmedianetwork.com

AVN Porn Companys

AVN (Adult Video Network) is one of the USA’s most important porn institutions, if not the leading trade organization focusing on adult entertainment. Founded by Paul Fishbein in 1982 and based in California, it is probably best known for its annual awards ceremony, which some commentators have dubbed the Oscars of the porn world. 

AVN Media Network is about more than giving out gongs. It’s one of the significant players keeping the adult industry alive with its news, magazines and events. AVN works in four main areas of the adult industry trade and is responsible for the following:

  • AVN Magazine (Adult industry news)
  • Awards
    • AVN Awards
    • “O” Awards
    • GFY Awards
  • Events
    • AVN Show
    • AVN Adult Entertainment Expo Business
    • AVN Adult Entertainment Expo Fanfest
    • AVN Novelty Expo
    • Internext
    • Webmaster Access (affiliate conference)
    • The Lair (an interactive, kinky play space at their expos)
  • Digital
    • AVN.com
    • Newsletters
    • GFY.com

AVN also works with gay adult entertainment and looks after GAYVN.

AVN Media is a private company and employs around 100 people. It is a highly influential organization that continues to shape the adult entertainment industry. Every porn production house and star wants to win one of the prestigious AVN ‘Best…’ Awards at the annual event. After 32 years in operation, the company continues to dominate the adult industry’s trade side.

8. Hokuto Corporation / DMM.com

DMM Japanese porn brand giant

Few people would have heard of The Hokuto Corporation unless they are heavily into fungus. There is another company by the same name that produces mushrooms, but here, we’re looking at the Hokuto Corporation, which deals in Japan’s adult video market. A much more exciting company!

This powerful porn firm was founded in 1990 and, by 2008, handled products from more than 150 different adult studios, making it one of the largest distributors of AV in Japan. It has surpassed its main rival, the Soft On Demand Group, taking some of its clients along the way. It is regularly raking in between $50 million and $300 million per year, depending on which statistics you believe.

The online presence for Hokuto is the store, DMM.com which has a catalogue of:

  • 160,000 videos for sale. 
  • 200,000 adult videos for rental
  • 130,000 videos for digital download
  • Biographies of 30,000 AV models
  • Top rank lists for Japan’s porn stars
  • Hosts AV actresses’ blogs

The site also hosted a Pay-Per-View service which has now been discontinued and has reached #30 in Japanese traffic rankings. Since 2014, when the company partnered with the adult gaming platform, Nutaku, it has been seeking to expand worldwide and now has a branch of operations that works with the western porn market.

Here’s a fun fact: Hokuto translates from Japanese as the name for the constellation, The Big Dipper (or the Plough). Long may their stars shine…

9. Vivid Entertainment

https://www.vivid.com/

Vivid Entertainment mainstream porn company

Vivid Entertainment is an American adult entertainment company and studio in California specializing in high-end porn movies. It was founded in 1984 by Bill Asher, David James and Steven Hirsch and is still in operation today, producing movies for its websites and other famous porn studios.

By 2002, Vivid was attracting over $2 billion in revenue from content production and distribution through television, video and entertainment, and by 2006 was dominating the adult video market. As a company (and adult site), it has won a raft of industry awards, taking home 41 AVN and XBIZ awards between 1987 and 2015. As of 2023, Vivid boasts over 300 award wins.

Vivid Entertainment doesn’t limit itself to porn. It has also produced a range of clothing, sex toys and other products, including snowboards. However, it is best known for its porn and for featuring some of the best-known stars in the adult industry.

Among Vivid’s star finds are:

  • Kayden Kross
  • Sunny Leone
  • Briana Banks
  • Asia Carrera
  • Tera Patrick
  • Hann Hilton
  • Savanah Samson

The public face of Vivid Entertainment is Vivid.com which offers members over 7,000 videos, plus full DVDs, image galleries, pornstar news and information, celebrity stories and even dating and cam sites.

Vivid now has 18 diverse websites that range from classic porn to virtual reality. If it’s got anything to do with adult entertainment, Vivid has it covered, and their sites include:

  • Vivid Interactive
  • Vivid Live
  • Vivid Cams
  • Vivid Radio
  • Vivid Virtual

They also have a reputation for publishing celebrity sex tapes as they did with Kim Kardashian and Pamela Anderson (separately, although together would have been interesting). Vivid once offered Pippa Middleton $5 million to appear in a porn movie. She is the sister of the future queen of England, so, unsurprisingly, it never happened.

Estimates put Vivid Entertainment’s annual income at $600 million and the number of employees at 194, without counting the numerous crews and models who work to make the porn that keeps Vivid alive.

As with many of the porn companies we have been looking at, there is a difference between the public face – the porn sites – and the more private, financial and business side of the operation. Vivid.com is now owned and operated by Digigamma B.V. based in the Netherlands, and Gamma Entertainment Inc based in Canada, while Vivid Entertainment remains in the USA.

10. Gamma Entertainment

Adult Time review

In 2019, Gamma Entertainment launched Adult Time, the centralized platform for premium studios, partner porn sites, and exclusive adult movies. The fact that Adult Time is now one of the largest and most subscribed-to porn networks on the net is a testament to Gamma Entertainment’s power in the porn world.

Founded in 1996 by Karl Bernard and offering ‘Complex IT Solutions, Web Hosting and Networking for the Adult Industry’, Gamma Entertainment is one of the major players in the porn world. Based in Montreal, Canada, it operates with an estimated revenue of $13.5 million to $21 million per year (according to ZoomInfo) and employs over 49 staff. These figures look significantly low based on the company’s recent growth.

Gamma Entertainment manages websites under various products and programs, and some of the porn world’s top sites fall under the Gamma Entertainment umbrella. It oversees three major affiliate programs offering webmasters plenty of material with which to promote Gamma sites and, thus, earn income. They are listed here with some of their best-known sites.

  • Fame Dollars
    • Evil Angel
    • 21 Sextury
    • Fame Digital
    • Devil’s Film
  • Blazing Bucks
    • XEmpire
    • Quebec Productions
    • The ‘X’ series including Hard X, Erotica X, and Dark X
  • Buddy Profits
    • Next Door Studios
    • Hot House
    • Pride Studios
    • Falcon Studios

In March 2011, Gamma acquired 21SexturyCash and incorporated it into its revenue-share affiliate business, Fame Dollars. 21SexturyCash has an estimated revenue of $5.4 million per year.

11. Evil Angel

https://www.evilangel.com

Evil Angel porn studio

Founded in 1989 by John Stagliano, Evil Angel operates out of Van Nuys, California as an entertainment provider, film and video producer, and offering marketing, media and internet services. It also produces some very hot porn.

The legendary porn studio has an employee count of over 61 and operates with an estimated annual income of $5 million (2021), although that is likely to be a (very) conservative estimate.

Evil Angel is best known for pioneering gonzo porn in the late 1980s and has attracted many notable porn directors and stars to work for its studio. In the early days, it leaped on new video technology (remember when video was ‘new’?) and was able to produce its movies for around $5,000 instead of the $40,000 needed to shoot on film. Twenty years later, it moved to DVD, and now to digital, and remains one of the world’s most visited porn sites.

Evil Angel’s success has not been without its ups and downs, as illustrated by the following notable events.

  • 1990: Evil Angel founded Elegant Angel as a subsidiary.
    • 1996: Elegant Angel went its separate way after a falling out between directors, John Stagliano and Patrick Collins.
  • 1993: Evil Angel was grossing more than $1 Million per year.
  • 1997: Evil Angel was the most profitable porn studio in the world.
  • 2007: It received 127 AVN Award nominations in 60 categories.
    • That was the fourth year in a row it received over 100 nominations.
  • 2015: Trans porn was its biggest selling niche (according to its vice president).

Evil Angel and its parent company have fought legal battles against DVD piracy, obscenity charges and copyright.

Evil Angel arranges contracts with its in-house directors that let those directors own the films they make. This is unusual in porn, and Evil Angel makes its cut from the distribution, promotion and sales. The process has attracted many a top-name director, and among the Evil Angel Hall of Fame are:

  • LeWood
  • Rocco Siffredi
  • Joey Silvera
  • Christoph Clark
  • Nacho Vidal
  • Jonni Darko

As well as its porn sites and studios, Evil Angel has a magazine division, Evil Angel Publishing, and in 2007, launched ‘Extra Parts’, a 100-page magazine with images from Joey Silvera’s movies featuring trans women.

Evil Angel ranks highly in the porn world, offers diverse sites and DVDs, wins awards, and intends to remain delightfully evil (and profitable) for many years.

12. Beate Uhse AG

Beate Uhse top European porn company

The well-known USA brands aside, you may want to know who rules the porn roost in Europe. Well, we can tell you who used to… Beate Uhse AG, now known as Beate Uhse Group BV.

This is a German group of companies that produce adult sex toys, lingerie, clothing and porn, and apart from being Germany’s leading porn retailer, it was the most successful sex industry company in the country.

Was, note.

Since its inception, the company has had a roller-coaster ride through the ups and downs of the adult entertainment world. It was huge when sex shops and toys were big and smaller when the internet started to take away the need for print porn. Finally, with free porn flooding the market, it fell into insolvency, although it is still trading. Beate Uhse Group BV is, if you like, an example of how the adult industry rides the global wave.

Through all of that, Beate Uhse Group BV acquired some impressive stats:

  • It employed over 1,500 people.
  • It operates in more than 60 countries.
  • Has been listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange since 1999.
  • In 2004, combined sales were at €280 million.
  • At that time, it was the world’s largest distributor of adult products.

Business has declined since the heady days of 2004, and in 2016, Beate Uhse Group BV scaled down to 600 employees, and closed 16 of its 78 stores. The company is now based in Veendam in the Netherlands.

If you were wondering about the company’s name, Beate Uhse-Rotermund, a former German war-time pilot, was the sex pioneer who founded the company. She died in 2001, but her name and her company live on.

What Is The World’s Largest Porn Company?

PornHub largest porn site

MindGeek, now known as Aylo, is the undisputed King of the porn industry. It’s the largest porn company in the world as of August 2023.

Founded in 2004 (as Manwin) and now employing over 1,000 people and worth over $740 million (2021), MindGeek controls the biggest porn sites on the net, including PornHub.

Who Is The Closest Competitor to MindGeek? 

In 2020, Xbiz put WGCZ as MindGeek’s closest competitor, but times change, and it’s difficult to pinpoint the closest rival when so many porn companies are reluctant to release their key financials.

We can look at who owns the closest rivals to Pornhub:

Porn SiteGlobal RankAdult Site Rank
Pornhub121
XVideos72
XNXX103
XHamster194
Info from SimilarWeb (2023)
  • At #1, Pornhub is owned by MindGeek
  • At #2 and #3, Xvideos and XNXX are held by WGCZ.
  • At #4, xHamster is independent of the two.

In terms of annual revenue, MindGeek’s Pornhub outranks WGCZ’s two sites together, yet it still doesn’t compare to the money made by Hammy Media’s xHamster.

Whichever way you look at it, MindGeek, WGCZ and Hammy Media are at the top of the rankings, making WGCZ and Hammy Media MindGeek’s closest competitors.

How Big Is The Global Porn Industry?

Massive. The porn industry generates an estimated $100 billion annually, more than many countries.

There are various ways to examine the size of the porn industry, so let’s take a closer look at some facts and figures about the porn biz:

  • If we’re looking at generating income, the porn industry makes an estimated $100 billion annually, with $13 billion coming from the USA alone.
  • Regarding internet downloads, you’re looking at 35% of all downloads from all sites across the web.
  • For search engine results, porn accounts for 25% of search queries.
  • There are over 68 million porn-related search queries per day globally.
  • An estimated 40 million Americans regularly visit porn sites.
  • 75.8% of Americans have watched online porn.
  • Porn sites make up roughly 12% of all sites online. Another source puts this figure at 4%. With over 1.13 billion websites online, however, either figure is still a vast number.
Porn Production companies

Porn is a global industry and not without its critics who regularly point to these statistics:

  1. USA: There are over 200,000 registered porn addicts in the USA, and 40 million Americans regularly access porn.
  2. United Kingdom: Forget your etiquette and politeness; between 2019 and 2022, the number of Brits being treated for porn addiction rose by 133%.
  3. Japan: According to studies, shifting cultural and economic standards in Japan are causing a surge in ‘heavy porn use.’
  4. France: France is trying to minimalize younger people’s access to porn sites, though the country still ranks 4th in the top 20 countries watching the most porn.
  5. Canada: According to Pornhub, Canadians spend 10 minutes on porn sites every day.

Who Owns The World’s Largest Adult Sites?

Let’s look closely at who owns the world’s largest adult sites.

Here’s a list of the top 20 adult sites based on their traffic share rankings, who owns them, and what type of XXX content they offer:

RankSiteOwned ByPrimary Content
#1XVideosWGCZPorn tube
#2PornhubMindGeekPorn tube
#3XNXXWGCZ Porn tube
#4xHamsterHammy MediaPorn tube
#5RealsrvUnknownSuspected spam/malware
#6StripchatTrademark of Technius LtdLive sex cams
#7SpankbangBig Bang MediaPorn tube
#8ChaturbateMulti Media LLCLive sex cams
#9xHamster20Hammy MediaPorn tube
#10OnlyfansFenix International LtdOriginal self-made content, often porn
#11Live JasminDocler GroupLive sex cams
#12EpornerMW MediaPorn tube
#13Dmm.co.jpHokuto CorporationPorn store
#14Noodle MagazineUnspecifiedVideo search engine
#15xHamster.desiHammy MediaSame as xHamster
#16You PornMG Free Sites LtdPorn tube
#17xHamster LiveHammy MediaLive sex cams
#18Miss AVUnspecifiedFree Japanese porn
#19Bonga CamsProweb Progressive DevelopmentPorn tube 
#20Dooood.comLeads to DoodstreamVideo sharing
Source: SimilarWeb August 2023

It’s clear to see from that table that the largest (and most successful) adult sites on the net are tube sites and cam sites. Offering something for free is a great way to get clicks through the door.

However, if you want to know the adult site with the most videos, DVDs, scenes, etc., then the video-on-demand service, AEBN, claims more than 450,000 porn flicks. More than any other porn company.

For a membership site, though, look no further than Gamma Entertainment’s AdultTime with more than 55,000 scenes from 300 partner sites.

Current Trends of the Top Porn Companies

Porn is not going away any time soon, but porn trends change, and to keep actively engaging users, porn sites and companies need to adapt to changing demands. 

Once, ‘blue movies’ and porn cinemas were the thing, then came porn on video and home video machines, and the porn cinemas faded away. Next came DVDs for better playback quality, followed by the internet and instant porn. There’s no doubt the most significant rise in the availability of porn came with the arrival of the internet, but has the bubble burst?

Not if the latest figures are anything to go by.

If we look at annual porn revenue in the United States, the porn industry is doing better than ever:

  • 2018: $607 million
  • 2019: $684 million
  • 2020: $770 million
  • 2021: $867 million
  • 2022: $976 million
  • 2023: $1.1 billion (estimated)

What strategies are the top porn studios using to continue to grow the porn industry?

Let’s take a look at some current trends:

The Rise of Porn for Women

Bellesa Films by women

Porn for women is a major growing trend, and in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of female porn producers and directors.

We’re not talking lesbian porn here; that’s a mainly male-driven fantasy. We’re talking porn made by women focusing on what women want: Sensuality, a more active female role, and a more female-centric viewing experience.

  • Bellesa.co provides a free tube and paid-for membership site showing only porn movies made by and for women.
  • ForHerTube is another popular alternative.
  • The major tube sites now have ‘by and for women’ categories with active followings.
  • We can’t forget female directors/producers who work for premium sites and porn studios. Joanna Angel, Sunny Leone, Nine Hartley, and Jenna Jameson spring to mind.

Women have worked as directors and porn producers for years (remember the ex-fighter pilot, Beate Uhse), but the trend of ‘porn for women by women’ is growing fast.

Personal Content and Amateur Creators

These days, the porn industry is open to everybody. Consumers have become creators. We have Onlyfans, where anyone can produce their own content and attract paying fans to view it for a price. This highlights the rise in personalized content.

One of the reasons the porn industry continues to grow is not just the release of new porn movies or the creation of new studios. It’s the fact that amateur content creators can monetize homemade movies and pics to an audience of millions. The decentralized distribution of personal adult content has turned some amateur models into very rich amateur porn moguls.

This, in turn, trickles back to the larger porn companies. They have all new stars to choose from. Many OnlyFans models have audiences in the thousands, and porn companies can draw significant attention to their adult brands by hiring and working with these self-made stars.

Big Studios Are Acquiring Smaller Porn Producers

Best AdultTime Porn Chanels

In 2023, every major porn company is jostling to boast the most extensive or impressive content library. What we’re seeing is a race to become the Netflix of Porn.

Premium porn sites have always been accessible if you have the cash. Charging, on average, between $14.95 and $29.95 for memberships, paid porn sites offer exclusive videos and photos in return for your monthly subscription.

But the way porn companies operate these sites is changing…

Larger porn companies have embraced the Netflix-style ‘All You Can Watch’ network concept. Customers expect a lot of content for their dollars these days, so porn companies must react.

Modern adult video-on-demand platforms now offer multiple premium porn sites under one membership or channels of porn drawn from those growing libraries of acquired sites.

  • Naughty America offers 47 sites in one bundle.
  • Kink.com offers 91 channels for one subscription.
  • BangBros gives you 53 sites for one membership.
  • Men.com has eight exclusive sites in one package.

Most famous of all, Adult Time, has built a reputation as the ‘Netflix of Porn‘ by offering 300 partner studios in a single monthly subscription.

Rival site Adult Prime, owned by International Media Company BV, aims to wrestle some of that market share with its library of VOD content drawn from 87 studios.

Don’t be surprised if other companies like MindGeek and WGCZ soon follow suit, offering access to their towering collections of porn for a single monthly price. Consolidation is the name of the game.


That wraps up our coverage of the best porn companies in 2023. Have you spotted any major players that we’ve missed? Got any questions about the world’s top porn company?

Let us know your thoughts on the movers and shakers in the global porn business!

AUTHOR PROFILE

Jackson Marsh

Jackson has written for the adult industry for over 17 years. He has contributed to major review sites reviewing straight, gay and trans porn, and has written for print and online porn publications. When not writing about the adult industry, he writes and publishes historical mystery and romance novels, and has won a European Gay Porn Award for his erotic fiction. Follow Jackson's work on his website, or his latest releases on Amazon.
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