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The company will issue (their, its) annual report next month.

In this case, should I use "its" or "their"?

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Both its and their are pronouns. While its is a singular pronoun, their is a plural pronoun.

A company is a collective noun. In AmE, Company takes a singular verb form and singular pronoun. While in BrE, Company takes a plural verb form and plural pronoun.

So, depending on that, both are correct.

In AmE:

The company will issue its annual report next month.

In BrE:

The company will issue their annual report next month.

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  • 4
    In BE, you can use either the plural noun or singular pronoun for a company.
    – Khan
    Oct 17, 2015 at 13:08
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    @Khan In AE, you can use either the plural noun or singular pronoun for a company.
    – tchrist
    Oct 17, 2015 at 13:23
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    'their' is increasingly used as a singular pronoun too.
    – Simon
    Oct 17, 2015 at 16:30
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    I just checked today's issue of the British "Financial Times" newspaper, and it consistently refers to companies as "it," not "they". The (rather old-fashioned) BrEng meaning of "a company" = "a group of people" is a plural collective noun, or course. A "company" in the sense of a "commercial organization" is a type of "legal entity," (i.e., without getting too deep in legal definitions, "something which is not a person, but which which has the same legal rights and obligations that an individual person can have") and as such it is logically singular, not plural.
    – alephzero
    Oct 17, 2015 at 23:36
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Your question: should I use its or their in: The company will issue their/its annual report next month?

In this instance, I'd recommend using its:

The company will issue its annual report next month.

This, among other things, echoes Kelly's answer and Fantasier's answer to an old question: "If a collective noun is seen as a whole, sole, impersonal unit, then singular verbs are more common. If it is seen as a collection of people doing personal things, then plural verbs are more common. In American English the verb for the noun is usually singular in all cases except family (if you don't quantify it with members of, people in etc)."

Which also echoes an old answer by FumbleFingers: "(in "British English") [W]e quite naturally use singular or plural for things like company, family, group, according to context", and information relating to collective nouns which is relatively to find around the web, including on English Language & Usage Stack Exchange.

Back to your sentence, it's clear that it's safer to use its in either British or American English. Even though it may be possible to use their in British English (and also in American English), I'd personally use it in that specific instance; and though I can't say exactly why, this Google Ngram chart appears to support my choice:

enter image description here

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For what it's worth, Google Books Ngram Viewer would suggest that company is more often treated as singular.

enter image description here

But all you can really draw from this is that it's acceptable to treat company as either singular or plural.

I think it comes down to whether or not you want to emphasise the single legal entity or the group of people who make up the company.

In the case of an annual report, it is issued by the single legal entity and so I would use the singular:

The company will issue its annual report next month.

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In AmE, I think it is 'it'. So,

The company will issue its annual report next month (AmE)

In BrE, companies are often called with a plural pronoun

The company will issue their annual report next month (BrE).

My opinion

If you are talking about the 'company' use 'it'. If you are peculiar about mentioning the owners or authorities, mention 'their'.

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    Not really. In American English, it is perfectly normal to use their to refer to a company.
    – tchrist
    Oct 17, 2015 at 13:24
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The company will issue (their, its) annual report next month.

A company in this grammar is classed as a single entity, so will release its (as ownership) annual report.

A Board of Members would release their (joint ownership) annual report.

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