Philip Roth Bolsters Houghton Mifflin's Fourth-Quarter Sales

Houghton Mifflin Publishing and Houghton Mifflin Company announced today its fourth-quarter and annual financial results, saying that sales for the company were up for 2004, while profits were down. Annual net sales for the publishing divisions?which include the K-12, College and Trade and Reference divisions?totaled $1.28 billion, up from $1.26 billion in 2003, for an increase of $19.3 million. In the quarter ending Dec. 31, the company's net sales jumped 12% from 2003, up $28 million, to $239 million.

Despite some strong sales figures, the publisher's annual operating income was down, topping out at $16.7 million, a $33 million drop from the previous year. The company attributes the decline in part to higher production and editorial costs and higher selling and marketing costs.

The Trade and Reference Division did particularly well for the company, with net sales of $148.2 million, up 18.5% from the previous year. The company attributed the gain mainly to higher adult and children's book sales, singling out the performances of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, The Gourmet Cookbook, Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, an Oprah's Book Club pick.

Houghton Mifflin's College Publishing division's net sales, meanwhile, suffered in the fourth quarter. Net sales decreased 7.7% from the previous year, to $52.6 million. Increased availability of used textbooks is said to be partially responsible.

Reflecting on the company's '04 outcome, Houghton Mifflin's CEO, Tony Lucki, said in a release, "We made significant investments in 2004 in people products, and technology in order to compete effectively in the upcoming adoption cycle," referring to anticipated new increases in the educational sector. Looking to 2005's end results, he said, "We will work to better manage our costs to complement revenue growth with margin improvement."