Led by double-digit gains in its professional/trade and higher education divisions, total revenue at John Wiley & Sons rose 5% in the first quarter ended July 31, to $408 million and net income jumped to $44 million from $26.9 million in the comparable quarter last year. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, sales rose 9%. The improved profitability was attributed in part to increase sales of digital products that Wiley said have higher margins than print products.
The professional/trade group reported sales of $99.9 million in the quarter, an increase of 11%. Profit contribution jumped over 30% led by higher sales, product mix and higher margin e-book sales, partially offset by increased employment costs, Wiley said. E-book sales in the quarter doubled to $4 million, and the company now has 2,000 titles in the Apple iBookstore and over 9,000 available for the Kindle. It signed an e-book agreement with Google in June. Reviewing results by categories (on a currency neutral basis) business sales rose 13% with sales strong through all channels and solid e-book sale gains; technology sales jumped 31% helped by books related to MS Office 2010 and the iPad; education sales increased 37% led by the bestseller Teach Like a Champion; psychology sales grew 13%, while architecture was flat. Sales in the consumer segment declined 7%.
In its other divisions, sales in the higher education group rose 14%, to $79 million. Wiley said sales were up in every region, and the largest increases came in the engineering and computer science, and science categories. Digital-only billings—sales of digital products not packaged with textbooks—rose 26%, to $4 million in the quarter. Sales in Wiley’s largest segment, science/technical/medical/scholarly, revenue were flat at $229.4 million, with sales hurt by currency fluctuations (sales were up 7% on a currency neutral basis). Among the deals done in the quarter, Wiley struck agreements with a Saudi Arabian consortium for online book sales and e-book sales.
Based on first quarter results, Wiley said it still expects revenue growth in the mid-single digits (currency neutral) with earnings per share to rise 10% for all of fiscal 2011.
