Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported first quarter sales, with revenues of $206 million, up from $163 million a year ago, primarily on the addition of Scholastic’s EdTech business. The seasonal net loss of $165 million was $5 million (or 3 percent) higher than a year ago. In education, there was a “decline in domestic education billings due to smaller new adoption market in 2016 versus 2015.” The company said that trade sales of $31.5 million were down $2.3 million, or 7 percent, in the quarter, “due to a decrease in net sales of ebooks attributed to fewer movie tie-ins of bestselling ebook […]
Earnings Reports
A Flat Quarter for Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster’s parent company CBS reported first quarter results after the close of the market on Tuesday, with the publisher reporting flat sales of $145 million, as operating income was up $1 million to $13 million, “primarily reflecting lower production and selling costs” and driven by “operating efficiencies.” While sales were even with a year ago, that was a modest bar (since they had sales of $153 million in Q1 2014; $171 million in Q1 2013; and $176 million in Q1 2012). CEO Carolyn Reidy acknowledged to us the opening quarter has been soft “for the last couple of years” while adding […]
Corporate: Pearson Has Expected Q1 Decline, As CBS Considers Buyout of Redstone Shares
Pearson issued a first quarter “trading update” in connection with their annual meeting. As expected, results were weak, with overall sales down 6 percent, “in line with expectations.” They say Penguin Random House “had a solid first-quarter performance with a strong bestseller performance and net integration benefits partly offset by reduced demand for ebooks, following industry-wide changes in terms in 2015.” In other corporate news, Reuters reported exclusively that CBS has held “preliminary and ongoing” discussions with investment bankers in recent months regarding “how it could buy CBS’s voting shares from Redstone’s National Amusements Inc, and collapse CBS’s dual-class share […]
Amazon Has Better-than-Expected Profit
Amazon reported first quarter sales on Thursday afternoon following the close of the market, with net income of $513 million (or $1.07 per share) that was almost double what analysts were expecting. The company’s shares are up close to 10 percent in early Friday trading as a result. Net sales rose 28 percent to $29.13 billion, also well ahead of projections. As in previous quarters, the real source of the profits is the fast-growing AWS web services business, where operating income was $604 million. North American media sales of $3.21 billion were up 8 percent (gaining $239 million) and international media […]
Apple Falls Below Low Expectations — But “Services” Still Grows
As expected, Apple reported the first year-over-year quarterly decline in revenue in more than a decade, as sales of $50.56 billion fell below analysts’ lowered expectations. Sales were down in every region except Japan, with China and the rest of Asia declining more than the US (-10%) and Europe (-5%). But in the segment that has the most relevance for the book business, and the area where they are directly competitive with Amazon and Google, the “services” line item that includes the iTunes stores, revenue still grew. Sales of $5.99 billion were up 20 percent from $5 billion a year ago. […]
Google Play Gains Again, Even As Earnings Are Below Analysts’ Estimates; Apple China iBooks Shutdown Confirmed
The headline from Thursday afternoon’s earnings release from Alphabet/Google was that earnings came in below analysts’ expectations, with first quarter sales of $20.3 billion up 17 percent. In the segment we follow, the glamorous “Other revenue” that incorporates the Google Play store, sales of $2.1 billion were up 24 percent (though 1 percent below the previous, holiday quarter). In the investor conference call, the company said, “Year-over-year performance was driven by Play as well as continued strong growth in cloud and apps and a nice contribution from hardware.” Apple‘s earnings report was postponed until next week. In the meantime, the […]