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Hachette Livre's UK arm "grew at the same rate" during the third quarter as it had done for the first half of 2008, according to results released this week.
Lagardere Publishing reported 1.2% sales growth, or €1,563.4m (£1230m) for the nine months to the end of September, up 4.3% on a like-for-like basis. However, the firm said it had been "hit by a negative foreign exchange effect of €86m (£68m)" owing to the 40% of revenues generated "in the dollar and sterling zones".
The firm claimed sales in the US division had "accelerated sharply during the summer", largely owing to bestsellers by Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson. Lagardere highlighted the UK as showing continued "dynamism in fiction for adults and children's books".
Tim Hely-Hutchinson, chief executive of Hachette UK, was optimistic. He said: "In a year of no growth in the UK trade, Hachette UK continues to increase its market share across children's and adult publishing."
He highlighted the 4% growth in market share on last year, up to 15.9% at the end of September. "We had a very strong summer with five out of eight of the Richard and Judy summer reading selections, including Linwood Barclay's No Time For Goodbye, which was the fastest selling paperback of the year.
"This Christmas, like last Christmas, sees group titles filling the bestseller lists, demonstrating the breadth, diversity and popularity of our publishing for adults and for children."
However, in France, sales in education and literature were down, which the publisher said was "in line with the 2008 first-half trend", although added illustrated books, including children's novels, "showed very favourable trends".