Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (LON:BMY) saw revenues rise 13% year-on-year on a constant currency basis in the first quarter of its financial year.
Helped by the weakness of sterling, total revenues in the three months to the end of May were 19% higher than in the corresponding period of 2016, with the growth driven by the publisher’s Consumer division.
Proving it is not a one-trick pony, the Consumer division had a number of top selling titles during the quarter, including A Court of Wings and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, Tom Kerridge's Dopamine Diet and The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray.
Meanwhile, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World by Kate Pankhurst was the biggest selling children's non-fiction title in the UK in the calendar year to 3 June, according to market research group Nielsen.
Of course, Harry Potter was still out there doing the business, and subsequent to the end of the reporting period the wildly popular series celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on 26 June.
Two new books are being published in October with the British Library to accompany their Harry Potter exhibition. They are Harry Potter: A History of Magic - The Book of The Exhibition, which takes readers on a journey through the subjects studied at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; and Harry Potter - A Journey Through A History of Magic, which details the history of magic in the “Potterverse”, from alchemy to unicorns, ancient witchcraft to Hogwarts.
Diversification into B2B digital resources is gaining momentum
In the Non-Consumer division, sales of digital resources in the first quarter of fiscal 17/18 were up 16% year-on-year.
Output of digital resources continues well against the Bloomsbury 2020 plan, the company said. “Bloomsbury 2020” is the company’s initiative to move further into the area of business-to-business digital publishing, with the company producing a range of scholarly digital resources aimed at academic libraries worldwide.
READ Bloomsbury Publishing weaving a spell with academic services
The digital resource Bloomsbury Popular Music, released earlier this year, is proving popular in academic library trials.
Bloomsbury Professional Online has had a strong start to the new financial year, while the group’s professional resource, International Tax, was launched in May. The law resources Practice and Procedure; Intellectual Property and Info Technology and Clinical Negligence were also launched in the first quarter.
This month the Bloomsbury Design Library will be launched, following its successful showcase at the American Library Association conference in Chicago in June.
The first quarter of the financial year is traditionally the quietest in terms of profitability but it looks like a case of so far, so good, as the board indicated it expects profit for the full year will be in line with market expectations.