Lagardère’s sales drop slightly in 2018

Hachette Book Group (HBG) parent company Lagardère Publishing’s total consolidated sales for its publishing group fell by 1.6% in 2018 compared to the previous year, dropping to €2.52 billion (A$4bn).

According to Lagardère’s report, the slight decline in business was due to ‘the absence of curriculum reform in France and to a lesser extent in Spain’, but was countered by ‘good momentum’ in North America due strong sales of novels such as The President is Missing (James Patterson & Bill Clinton).

In the US, HBG CEO Michael Pietsch credited ‘another solid year of revenue growth’ to strong fourth quarter sales, driven by bestselling novels from authors such as Nicholas Sparks, Michael Connelly and Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling). Pietsch noted sales growth via HBG distribution clients such as Abrams (Jeff Kinney’s Diary of A Wimpy Kid: the Meltdown) and Chronicle (Sherri Duskey Rinker’s Construction Site on Christmas Night).

Pietsch noted ‘significant growth in downloadable audio’, with audiobooks representing 2.7% of revenue, increasing from 2% in 2017. Ebooks accounted for 7.9% of Lagardère publishing revenue in 2018, up from 7.1% in the previous year.

A full report on Lagardère’s earnings will be released in March.

Category: International news