Hachette reports 'standout' first half of 2018

Hachette UK has reported a "standout" first half of the year with sales "considerably up" year-on-year. 

Parent company Lagardère reported business levels in the UK had "eased back ... (down 2.5%), where the success of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury at Little, Brown Book Group was unable to offset the effect of the contraction in the frontlist at Headline and Hodder". However, a spokesperson for Hachette UK said that figure had been skewed by a one-off provision against returns in 2017 which "is not reflected in the Lagardere results".

C.e.o. David Shelley commented toThe Bookseller: "Hachette UK had a standout first half of 2018, ending the period considerably ahead of its results this time last year (on a like-for-like basis, excluding new acquisitions)."

Nielsen BookScan shows a TCM lift in the first-half of 3.1% (£83.9m).

Shelley said the first quarter had been "excellent", noting highlights such as the publication of Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, the paperbacks of David Lagercrantz’s Millennium 5, JP Delaney’s The Girl Before, and Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent and "strong performances" from Orion and John Murray Press.

Hachette UK capitalised on this with "a very good second quarter", he continued. Bestsellers that made "significant contributions" were, in non-fiction, Factfulness, Stories for Boys who Dare to be Different and, in fiction, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Force of Nature by Jane Harper, Friend Request by Laura Marshall, He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly, and Together by Julie Cohen. "Sleeper hits’" flagged meanwhile included How to be Happy by Eva Woods, which accumulated sales of over 50,000 copies for Sphere since it was released in January, and Gracie’s Secret by Jill Childs, an e-book bestseller for Bookouture.

In terms of the UK TCM, Shelley said Hachette "significantly outperformed the market", recording an increase in market share to 12.4%  from 12.2% in same period in 2017.

He added: "I am also delighted to report that all four of the brilliant publishing companies we acquired in 2017 performed exceptionally in the first half of the year ... Our e-books too are bucking the industry trend by being up on this same period in 2017 and audio downloads continue to outperform significantly against 2017.

"June is traditionally an important month for Hodder Education which, once again,  recorded a very strong performance, boosted by orders from the Caribbean in particular.

"Looking ahead, I am hugely excited by our programme for the second half of 2019, which has been greeted with enormous enthusiasm by all our customers at home and in our export markets."

First-half 2018 revenue at Lagardère Publishing, taking into acocunt all territories, came in at €1,000 million, up 0.5% like-for-like (down 1.9% on a consolidated basis). 

In France, revenue growth of 2.5% was reported, chiefly driven by General Literature, and in the US, an uptick of 1.4% uptick in revenue, attributed mainly to the success of the James Patterson and Bill Clinton's novel The President is Missing, while the Spain/Latin America region was down 5.1%. The contribution of e-books to Lagardère Publishing's overall revenue fell to 8.4% in first-half 2018, from 8.8% in first-half 2017.