The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

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Russell pleased with WHS Christmas

06.02.08 Graeme Neill

Rachel Russell, business unit director for books at W H Smith, said the retailer had a "good performance" over Christmas, despite a fall in high street like-for-like sales.

Like-for-like sales dropped 3% at its high street chain, but analysts were told that book sales rose by 2% like-for-like over Christmas, with gross margins about 40 basis points up. Russell declined to comment on the figures. "We don't disclose individual category figures until our April interim results," she said. "We certainly didn't lose market share over the Christmas period and are pleased with how things went. Our performance was to plan."

Russell hailed "some very good publishing" for the Christmas 2007 period. In particular she highlighted a good fiction hardback list, good "men's titles" by Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond and some key sports biographies. She claimed the retailer achieved a third of the market share on both Hammond and Lewis Hamilton's autobiography, as well as just over a third on Sharon Osbourne's memoir.

Russell said WHS had devoted "more of a focus" to advertising. "We had better results than in previous years in terms of customer reach and our position in terms of our [tracking agency] Adwatch listing. We were sixth beating Tesco, Currys and John Lewis." Russell said the year ahead looked "aggressive" but that WHS was well positioned.

"It will obviously be challenging in the summer because of the reduced footfall with no Harry Potter," she said. "Non-fiction doesn't look as exciting as in previous years but fiction looks pretty good."

For the 21 weeks to 26th January the entire group delivered total sales growth of 1% with like-for-like sales down 2%. The travel wing delivered total sales growth of 13%, with like-for-like sale´s up 1% for the same 21-week period.

Retail W H Smith Rachel Russell Graeme Neill Christmas WHS