International Sales Led Growth at AMS
by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 7/7/2003
International sales increased 33% at Advanced Marketing Services, to $84.5 million, for the year ended March 31, while domestic sales increased 19.5%, to $827 million, the company stated in its year-end filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sales to the U.K., AMS's largest overseas market, rose 32%, to $69.2 million, due to a combination of acquisitions and internal growth. During the year, AMS paid $1.9 million to acquire the British book distributor H.I. Marketing and paid $1.5 million for the Airlift Book Company. Sales in Australia doubled, to $8.2 million, but sales to Mexico slipped from $7 million to $6.7 million.
In some other numbers from the filing, AMS noted that it bought books from more than 400 publishers in the last fiscal year, with Random House accounting for 17% of the company's U.S. purchases. Penguin accounted for 14% of AMS's book purchases, while the AOL Time Warner Book Group and Simon & Schuster each accounted for 10%. AMS said that it "usually purchases titles directly from publishing houses at standard wholesaler discounts, which generally exceed retailer discounts," a phrase worth noting given recent reports of booksellers acquiring copies of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from two of AMS's largest accounts, Sam's and Costco.
