-Trading update confirms strong sales momentum
-Management see full year sales of £242.6 million
-Digital Resources benefiting from acquisitions
The Covid-19 pandemic created a new cohort of book enthusiasts.
Today’s trading update from Bloomsbury Publishing (BMY) for the four months through June 2022, confirms the strong demand for books with sales growing 27% year-on-year.
Bloomsbury management believes current consensus market expectations for revenues in the year ending 28 February 2023 to be £242.6 million.
Profit before taxation and highlighted items is anticipated to reach approximately £26.9 million.
Today’s trading update confirms the positive trends that were apparent in the group’s full year results.
These showed that sales increased by 24%, and pre-tax profit rose by 28%, which was 4% above consensus estimates. Earnings per share also exceeded forecasts by 10%.
This continued positive momentum chimes with the findings of UK Nielsen’s bookscan report.
The research revealed total consumer market shares for the first 26 weeks of 2022, was up 3% on 2008, the previous first half market leader.
CHILDREN AND ACADEMIC DRIVING GROWTH
For the four months to June 2022, there are two standout performers that have driven growth.
Within the consumer business, the children’s segment has grown by 34%.
In a similar vein, within the non-consumer business, academic and profession grew by 49%.
Strong demand for Paul Holywood’s Bake, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, and Sarah J Maas titles has driven growth within the consumer business. The latter has sold over one million print books to date.
DIGITAL RESOURCES A STAR PERFOMER
The group’s digital arm recently reached its long-term target of achieving sales of £15 million and £5 million of profit by the end of this financial year.
This strong performance has continued with management commenting ‘non consumer division growth was driven by continued strong demand for Bloomsbury digital resources’.
The division is reaping the benefits of two recent acquisitions:
Red Global Press, picked up in spring last year, strengthens Bloomsbury’s digital resources division. It has a backlist of more than 7,000 titles and publishes more than 100 new titles a year..
The purchase of ABC-CLIO, announced in December 2021, is accelerating Bloomsbury’s academic publishing push in North America, given its digital footprint in the American high school library market.
By mid-morning the shares were 1.3% higher at 381.9p.
