CBS reported second quarter earnings after the close of the market on Thursday, with Simon & Schuster recording sales of $189 million, up 3 percent (or $6 million) as compared to a year ago. The sales increase reflected “continued growth in digital book sales, partially offset by lower print book sales.” (Close observers–like us–will note this is a subtle variation on the line that CBS has repeated three times over the past year: “strong growth in the sale of more profitable digital content was offset by lower print book sales” is what they have said in the past.) OIBDA, however, declined sharply […]
Publishers
Harlequin Q2 Sales Drop Though Profits Still Gain
Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported second quarter results Wednesday. The book publishing unit had sales of $107 million (CA), down by $3.3 million. EBITDA was up $1.8 million in the quarter at $18.99 million, which Torstar attributed to “positive year over year adjustments to returns provisions and lower promotional spending.” As in the past, the sales drop was attributed to declines in print revenues that couldn’t be offset by digital gains, though “the shift in retail sales from print to digital moderated in the second quarter.” In addition, overseas revenues dropped because of the “economic softness in Europe,” although “lower […]
Penguin Results Decline In First Half, With Profits Cut In Half
Penguin’s parent company Pearson reported results for the first half of the year on Friday morning, with Penguin the only unit that declined in the period. Sales of £441 million were down £16 million from a year ago (4%), and operating profit suffered more, at £22 million down from £42 million a year ago. The company cited three factors in their performance: “A lighter publishing schedule, the exceptional performance of competitor bestsellers The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey and continued pressure on physical book publishing and retailing.” As evidence of that lighter schedule, Penguin US had 132 bestsellers […]
McGraw-Hill Has Second Straight Quarter of “Record” Profits
McGraw-Hill reported second quarter earnings Thursday morning. Adjusted net income from continuing operations was $243 million, up 15 percent and ahead of estimates in what was another “record” quarter for the company. Sales dropped 1 percent to $1.55 billion for the quarter. The education division recorded sales of $474 million, down 12 percent, while net profit, at $57 million, was a 36 percent improvement compared to a year ago–helped, they say, by the restructuring at the end of the last year as well as “ongoing tight expense management.” The company adds, as they did in the previous quarter, that the […]
Courier’s Publishing Division Continues Slide
Courier reported third quarter earnings, as their publishing business continues to shrink. Sales of $9.1 million were down 8 percent, though the operating loss of just under $1 million was a small improvement. Sales fell 2 percent at Dover and 31 percent at Creative Homeowner, with their REA line growing 2 percent. They launched the beta version of DoverPictura.com, an online store of over 100,000 images, during the period. Companywide, sales of $59 million were down 5 percent, “affected by a shift in ordering patterns in the education market, with textbook publishers tightening their inventory management in the current economy […]
The Hunger Games Boosted Scholastic Q4 And Full Year Earnings, Though They Temper Expectations For Next Year
The three words repeated often in Scholastic’s earnings report for the successful fourth quarter and fiscal 2012 year — The Hunger Games — should come as no surprise. The trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins now has more than 50 million copies to date in print and digital formats, the company also announced Thursday morning (23 million copies for The Hunger Games, 14 million for Catching Fire, and 13 million for Mockingjay.) That means they added over 13.5 million units since the end of March (after shipping and/or selling 12.5 million units in the first quarter of the year). So much […]