Amazon announced Q1 earnings last night, reporting that net income had more than doubled, to $3.6 billion compared to $1.6 billion in the period a year earlier. But cfo Brian Olsavsky warned investors not to expect similar performance in Q2, as the company expects margin growth to decline when it spends around $800 million in the quarter to evolve toward one-day shipping for all Prime members, starting in North America and eventually globally. The stock was trading near flat Friday morning on the reduced profit guidance. While profit was up, sales growth continued to slow, in line with analysts’ expectations. […]
Publishers
How the New Revenue Rules Affected Penguin Random House’s Sales and More Details
Pearson filed their annual 20-F report with the SEC last week, which includes an extensive set of financial statements for the Penguin Random House venture. Those financials are actually more detailed in some ways than what Bertelsmann releases, and give us additional insight into some important aspects of the company’s performance. Most significantly, Pearson details the exact effect of the new accounting rules for agency ebook sales on PRH’s performance. As you may recall, we explained that Bertelsmann’s application of the new revenue standard — under which they now count the full consumer price paid for ebooks in many instances, […]
Lagardere Publishing Still Looking to Acquire
Lagardere published their full annual report, which provides broader guidance for 2019 — including a strong reiteration that the publishing division is still looking to build their English-language publishing operations through an acquisition of scale: “As part of the strategy defined for the Group by Arnaud Lagardère, Lagardère Publishing plans to position itself for the potential acquisition of an English-language publisher – yet to be identified – to increase its weight in that linguistic market, where a large part of the economic future of global publishing is being played out.” More broadly, the publishing group “is expected to resume growth,” […]
Bonnier UK Discloses Big Losses and Recapitalization, Predicts A Profitable 2019
Struggling Bonnier Books UK announced improved sales in 2018, at £71.5 million (up 15 percent compared to 2017), and a reduced operating loss of £3.6 million. Operating EBITA was up £11m compared to 2017. “After a very weak 2017, Bonnier Books UK has made sizable progress towards its goal of sustainable profitability and looks set to be back in the black by 2019,” said Jim Zetterlund, chairman of Bonnier Books UK. But the real news is the disclosure of how much the unit lost, along with steep recapitalizations by the parent company. For 2017, the company reported a whopping operating […]
McGraw-Hill Reports 2018 Declines
McGraw-Hill reported its 2018 Q4 and full-year earnings and annual report today, with overall 2018 revenue of $1.6 billion. This is the fifth straight year of sales decline for the company, down from $1.83 billion in 2014. For the quarter, performance was “generally in-line with expectations,” with total billings down to $302 million from $340 million (11 percent decline) and adjusted EBITDA to $(25) million from $(5) million. The year as a whole was weighed down by “substantial headwinds” in the K-12 adoption market, which significantly impacted EBITDA — as well as by investment in new Higher Ed “affordability initiatives” […]
Obama Helps PRH Results As Dohle Looks to Future Growth
Bertelsmann reported full year 2018 results on Tuesday morning in Germany, with sales at Penguin Random House of €3.424 billion. Last year’s sales were €3.359, but because of the change in revenue recognition — specifically for some ebook sales — direct comparisons of sales numbers to previous years are no longer possible and will carry asterisks. (Also, per our style, from here forward, we will refer to the PRH reporting division, which includes the separate Random House Germany, as PRH+, and will use PRH for just the Penguin Random House joint venture.) At PRH on its own, sales were €3.134 billion*, […]