Prophecies of doom for the main street book store may be a little exaggerated, if the latest financial figures for WH Smith plc are anything to go by. The UK high street book and stationery chain has recorded a 9 percent uptick in its profit for its financial year as at end August 2014, and an 18 percent increase in its diluted earnings per share.
Stephen Clarke, Group Chief Executive of WH Smith, said: “The distinct strategies for each of our businesses continue to deliver good profit growth. We had another record year in Travel, with profits up 11% to £73m , driven by an increase in total sales of 4% and continued improvement in like-for-like sales, which were up 1% in the second half. In our High Street business profits increased by 4% to £58m, demonstrating the continued success of our profit focused strategy.”
Admittedly, those good sales numbers did conceal a 2 percent total sales drop for the full year, with a 6 percent drop in total high street sales. All the same, this is clearly not a group struggling on the brink, with enough cash in hand to do a substantial share buyback program which ate up almost the entirety of that increase in high street profits, and to raise its annual share dividend. The travel arm, incidentally, comprises outlets at airports, stations, and other locations for travelers, also demonstrating continuing appetite for printed paper media sales in the UK.
Although WH Smith has not had a reputation as the most strategically advanced or customer-friendly retailer in the UK, and is still operating off a basis of declining core sales, it still is clearly able to sustain profits, and has firepower in hand for any future repositioning or shift in strategy.
