Lagardere and Bertelsmann issued short first quarter highlight reports on Thursday morning. The more detailed report comes from Lagardere, where the book publishing division had sales of €442 million, up €2 million from a year ago. Last year’s acquisitions — primarily Brainbow, Bookouture, Summersdale and Jessica Kingsley — added €12 million in sales, while the weakening US dollar and British pound cost the unit -€23 million in foreign exchange. Lagardere says that sales in the US showed “solid growth, up 5.4%, lifted by the continued success of the backlist, especially Pete Souza’s Obama: An Intimate Portrait, and by a busy release schedule at Grand […]
Earnings Reports
Harper Gains In Third Quarter
News Corp. reported fiscal third quarter results on Thursday afternoon, with HarperCollins showing gains in sales and earnings. Sales grew $24 million, or 6 percent, to $398 million (almost back to the $402 million they registered in fiscal 2015). Foreign exchange accounted for $10 million of the gain, and digital sales grew in line with overall sales, thanks to digital audio, still comprising 22 percent of consumer revenues. EBITDA of $43 million was up $6 million. The company cited “higher sales in general and Christian publishing…and the continued strength of backlist titles such as The Subtle Art of Not Giving […]
Earnings, Etc.: Simon & Schuster Stable, Lagardere and Pearson Updates
Simon & Schuster’s parent company CBS reported first quarter earnings on Thursday afternoon, with sales at the book publisher down $1 million, to $160 million, and operating income up $1 million, to $16 million, “reflecting lower operating expenses resulting from the revenue mix.” (CBS overall had “record first-quarter revenue” of $3.76 billion” and an “all-time quarterly high in adjusted operating income of $772 million.) Simon & Schuster ceo Carolyn Reidy said that digital audio was the standout segment of the quarter, “way up” by 43 percent, due to “some great titles” for the medium (primarily Jason Matthews’ movie tie-in Red […]
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Soft Overall in Q1
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported first quarter results, with sales of $220 million, down $2 million from a year ago. EBITDA was a negative $15 million, a $9 million improvement from a loss of $24 million in the first quarter of 2017. The operating loss for what is typically their worst quarter was $87 million, also $9 million better than last year’s loss of $96 million, which they attribute to “changes in net sales, cost of sales, and selling and administrative costs.” Sales at the small trade division were up about $200,000, to $36.74 million, with negative EBITDA of ($837,000), compared to ($422,000) a year […]
Apple Services Continues Strong Growth
Apple reported fiscal 2018 second quarter earnings, with revenues of $61.1 billion, an increase of 16 percent for the same quarter last year. Growth in their services segment, which comprises digital content and services, Apple Care, Apple Pay, and licensing, was well ahead of expectations. CFO Luca Maestri reported in the conference call that the segment saw “all time record revenue” of $9.19 billion for the quarter, up 31 percent from $7.041 billion a year ago. Paid subscriptions increased to 270 million, from around 240 million last quarter, and ceo Tim Cook reiterated that the services segment remains a “huge […]
Amazon Gains On Strong Earnings
Amazon reported sales for the first quarter on Thursday afternoon, as net income more than doubled, to $1.63 billion, well ahead of analysts’ expectations. The stock is trading near all-time highs on the strong report. Sales of $51 billion were well ahead of the $35.7 billion in the same quarter a year ago. That was bolstered by $4.3 billion from physical stores — primarily the added Whole Foods. The results show fast growth in nearly every segment — their advertising business (+139%), subscription services (+60%), AWS (+49%), and third-party seller services (+44%). The lowest growth was in the basic business […]