Ebook boom at Bloomsbury

Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury is coping with life after the finish of the wildly successful teen-aged wizard series, with demand for its electronic books (ebooks) growing especially fast.

Ebook sales grew significantly in the final quarter of 2011, and were up 38% year-on-year. The group noted that ebook readers, such as Amazon's Kindle, were reportedly big sellers over Christmas.

The group said it will begin to get an idea of how well it did over the Christmas trading period when it starts counting up the returns in the next six weeks or so. However, the strong level of sales in the last quarter of 2011 combined with the significant digital contracts and strategic initiatives that the Bloomsbury management team has completed since the beginning of the financial year, mean that the group expect to deliver results in line with its expectations.

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"We have a robust business, strongly adapted to the digital market place, that we have positioned to take full advantage of the continuing opportunities arising from growth of online sales and sales of ebooks," claimed Nigel Newton, Bloomsbury's Chief Executive Officer.

"Other Bloomsbury strengths of database creation, publishing management services and rights licensing are underpinned by an extremely strong author list as we set forth in the New Year, building on our many recent successful acquisitions," Newton added.

There is plenty of ammo still in the keg for further acquisitions, with net cash as at 31 December 2011 totalling £7m.

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