Bertelsmann issued a brief first quarter trading update (in the European style), with sales just above flat at €3.92 billion and operating EBITDA up 6.7 percent to €463 million (from €434 million a year ago). Net income rose to €143 million from €106 million last year. Though not mentioned in the report, bear in mind that — as we underscored earlier — that the contribution from Penguin Random House is supercharged this quarter by the strong dollar (and British pound, relative to the euro). CEO Thomas Rabe says in the short release: “The year started well for Bertelsmann. We achieved […]
Earnings Reports
Sales Rise at HMH and Company Increases Loan, Repurchase Targets
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported first quarter results Thursday morning, with sales of $163 million, up almost 6 percent from $154 million a year ago, “driven by higher education and trade publishing sales and the recognition of previously deferred revenue.” The seasonal adjusted EBITDA loss of $52 million compares to a loss of $53 million a year ago, though the net loss $160 million (or $1.12 a share) was up from $146 million a year ago on higher income tax. Trade Publishing sales rose $2 million, or 5 percent, to $32 million for the quarter, “driven by strong net sales of frontlist culinary titles,” Newbery winner The Crossover, and “strong backlist sales of […]
Harper Grows with Harlequin, But Core Comp Falls With Lower Divergent Sales
HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp. reported third quarter fiscal year sales for the period ending March 31 after the close of the market on Tuesday. As you would expect overall sales rose at HarperCollins in the third quarter because the Harlequin acquisition makes them a bigger company, with sales of $402 million, up 14 percent on the quarter last year, while EBITDA increased 6 percent to $56 million. But on a comparable basis, HarperCollins itself without the addition of Harlequin saw sales decline 5 percent, down $18 million to $336 million, as core EBITDA fell 8 percent, to a still […]
At Apple, App Store Grows and iPad Sales Decline
Apple reported fiscal second quarter sales after the close of the market on Tuesday, with strong iPhone sales and a rapidly expanding customer base in China continuing to drive the company to excellent results. iPad sales continued their decline, moving 12.6 million units — compared to 16.3 million units a year ago — with lifetime sales since 2010 now at roughly 273 million tablets. CEO Tim Cook told investors on the conference call, “We’re clearly seeing cannibalization from iPhone and on the other side, from the Mac. And of course, as I’ve said before, we’ve never worried about that. It […]
Media Remains Moderate At Amazon; With Reports from Google and Pearson
Amazon reported first quarter sales through the end of March after the close of the market on Thursday: Net sales rose 15 percent to $22.72 billion, with a net loss of $57 million, or 12 cents a share — slightly ahead of analysts’ expectations for the company. Media sales (the category in which they include books and ebooks) remain the lowest-growing part of their business, as in recent quarters: North American media sales of $2.969 billion were up 5 percent (or $144 million) but international media sales fell on the strengthening dollar. Sales of $2.32 billion were down 12 percent (or $322 […]
Penguin Random House By the Numbers
We wound up discovering and deriving more information about Penguin Random House’s results from further review of their annual reports yesterday (which disclose breakdowns not offered up in their standard earnings releases). Most importantly, looking back at Bertelsmann’s 2013 annual report, we established a comparison baseline for 2013 results for Penguin Random House. That report said that if Penguin’s results had been incorporated for the full year (instead of just the last six months), 2013 book publishing sales for Bertelsmann would have been €3.248 billion overall — with PRH contributing €2.986 billion and the rest coming from PRH Germany. So we can […]