Do you still read books?
Waterstones has seen its first annual profit for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. Strong sales of children’s books, teenage literature and fiction have helped it achieve this.
In the year to the 30 April 2016, the company made a £9.8m pretax profit, the year before this it saw a £4.5m loss.
The company recorded a 4.3 per cent increase in sales to £409m, sales growth has also continued over the past year. At Christmas, the book selling giant saw a rise of 4.7 per cent.
James Daunt, a bookselling entrepreneur came into the company six years ago, to help it with its sales. He said sales at established stores had grown at an even faster pace.
Daunt said: “The growth of children’s books is an ongoing trend and an optimistic one for the future. People continue to read and teenagers continue to read and read more,”
“Maybe the entertainment of a book becomes more obvious in a world of so much transitory social media.”
He also added: “Book sales are back in growth again but we are also growing non-book sales, developing a cafe business and so the mix of what we sell is developing.”
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