The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Book sales grow 6.4% at Woolies

02.04.08 Graeme Neill

Woolworths Group's entire book business, including its wholesale and retail wings, grew by 6.4% last year, according to its chief executive.

Trevor Bish-Jones was speaking after Woolworths revealed that its total revenue was £3bn for the year ended 2nd February 2008, representing an 8.5% increase over the previous year. Group profit was £14.9m for the period, up from £7.3m for the previous year.

Like-for-like sales at Woolworths' retail shops were down 3.2%, with actual sales of £1.7bn, a £95.8m drop on the year before. However, the retail division reversed a loss of £12.9m in 2006, achieving a profit of £3.4m last year. Bish-Jones said book retail still represented a "very low quantum" of sales, but that the sector's performance was "good news for the business".

Profits in the wholesale division were hampered by £8.4m of costs arising from the merger of Bertrams with THE. Sales grew by 36% to £1.18bn and Bish-Jones praised the performance of Bertrams Library Services, where sales increased by 6.7% last year. Profit for the entire Entertainment Wholesale and Publishing business was £54.8m, up from £53.1m in 2006.

Bish-Jones said that while the Woolworths Group had been exploring digital content in other sectors like music, he did not envisage a popular e-book reader taking off in the foreseeable future: "Every piece of research we have done says that digital books is not something that's going to hit home because of the way a book is physically consumed."

Retail Financial Bertrams EUK woolworths THE Graeme Neill Trevor Bish-Jones