Yesterday Indigo announced their first quarter 2023 earnings for the period ended July 2 with sales of CA $204.6 million, up 19 percent from $172.1 million last year, a higher level than any first quarter in the past three years. The growth was driven by “the success of Indigo’s omnichannel business; a strong recovery in the retail channel, where traffic levels continued to normalize, and an ecommerce business that sustained incremental growth of 80% to fiscal 2020 levels.” Net loss was $25.4 million, compared to $21.9 million last year, due to inflation and increased freight costs and “increased strategic investment […]
Booksellers
BNED Finishes Less Poorly Than Last Year, But Still Loses Money On Sales Below Norm
Barnes & Noble Education reported results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended April 30, and restated the results of fiscal year 2021, due to “certain out of period adjustments related primarily to income tax benefit, and restructuring and other charges.” Those adjustments increased the fiscal year 2021 net loss by $8 million. The company finished the fiscal year by doing less worse than before: Sales for Q4 2022 were $261 million, up 17 percent from the revised $223 million last year. But that’s still well below the pre-pandemic level, which saw sales of $334 million in Q4 2019. […]
WH Smith Rebounds Overall, But High Street Sales Are Weak
UK book retailer WH Smith reported a brief trading update for the third quarter, the 15 weeks ended June 11. The company is still comparing their results to those of 2019, with overall group sales at 107 percent of the same period in 2019 lifted by a surge in travel—the first time the company has risen above pre-pandemic numbers. But High Street sales remain weak, at 79 percent of 2019’s level, including “the impact from the cyber incident on [online gift and greeting card business] Funky Pigeon,” down 7 percent from the same period last year. High street sales have […]
Indigo Exceeds $1 Billion In Sales, Returns to Profitability
Indigo reported fourth quarter and full-year results on Friday for the period ended April 2. They closed the year with their best fourth quarter sales ever, which lifted full-year sales to $1.06 billion – a new all-time high, and the first time above $1 billion since 2019 (when sales were $1.05 billion). Fourth quarter sales were CA$221 million, up 10.9 percent from $199 million during the same period last year, driven by “strong omnichannel sales” and “improved pricing strategies.” The net loss for the quarter was $23.4 million, $16.1 million less than last year. Those full year sales of $1.06 […]
Steep Drop in Booktopia Earnings; Founder Nash to Step Down
Australia’s online bookseller Booktopia released a trading update for the quarter ending March 31 showing slower growth and a big drop in earnings, accompanied by an announcement that co-founder Tony Nash will step down as ceo once a replacement is found. Sales of $64.5 million AU were down 1% compared to last year, “due to the disrupted start to the academic year.” EBITDA fell 65 percent to $1.5 million, due to increased operating expenses at its distribution center and the lower academic book sales. “Whilst the company is pleased to see revenues continue to grow and expects that to continue, […]
WH Smith’s High Street Sales Flat While Travel Recovered
UK retailer WH Smith reported six-month results for the period ended February 28. Sales at their High Street bookstores remained flat at the historically low level of £270 million, which had been down (14) percent a year ago compared to before the pandemic, when sales were £315 million (and that period, in turn, was down from £333 million as of February 2019). High Street trading profit was £35 million, up slightly from £33 million last year. The company said, “Our High Street business delivered a resilient and profitable performance in the period, despite the challenges facing the UK high street…and […]