WH Smith sees FY outcome slightly ahead of views

WH Smith stated in its buying and selling replace that its journey enterprise continued to ship a “robust efficiency” reflecting a rise within the variety of individuals passing by way of airports and practice stations.

The retailer said its annual profits would be slightly above expectations of £121m after strong sales of EL James’s latest book, Grey, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman and a craze for adult colouring books.

The company further revealed that its Travel business continued to deliver a strong performance with increase sales across all of its core channels in the second half of the year.

The group added that its new store opening programme in the UK and aboard is on track and said it would continue to deliver gross profit margin improvements and planned cost savings at its high street stores.

Despite the strong book sales, analysts believe underlying sales at WH Smith’s high street outlets were likely to have fallen by about 4% compared with last year, continuing their long-term decline.

WH Smith also runs 129 global units in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, South-East Asia and India.

“WH Smith feels that only 50pc of its airport mix is VATable and its customer base includes predominantly intra EU travellers and global non-UK ones not exposed to the British Press”, said Tony Shiret, analyst at Espirito Santo.