HarperCollins Profit Rises 29% as Quarterly Sales Hit a Record US$582 Million
HarperCollins grew its profit measure by 29% in the first three months of its financial year, and its sales for that quarter reached a record US$582 million, according to Publishers Marketplace.
The profit measure is called EBITDA, short for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. It is a way of showing how much a company earns from its core business before certain costs are counted. HarperCollins's EBITDA rose to US$75 million in the quarter ended 30 September.
Sales rose 9% over the same period. The company credited strong sales and continued growth in digital revenue, meaning money from ebooks and other downloads rather than printed copies. Gains came in both physical and digital book sales, according to Yahoo Finance and The Wall Street Journal.
Audiobooks were a standout. News Corp, the media group that owns HarperCollins, said on its earnings call that its book publishing division grew on the back of audiobook sales up 13%, according to Investing.com. An audiobook is a recording of a book being read aloud, sold or borrowed through apps and libraries.
Part of the profit jump is a comparison effect. Last year's quarter carried a US$13 million write-off of a customer receivable. A receivable is money a customer owes, and a write-off means the company has decided it will probably never collect it and removes the amount from its accounts. That loss followed the collapse of Baker & Taylor, a book distributor. This year's quarter did not carry that charge, which helped the EBITDA figure rise.
The wider year was less bright. For the full fiscal 2026 year, which ended in June, HarperCollins's profit fell 3% to US$287 million, Publishers Weekly reported in August.
For readers, the numbers mostly come down to what people choose to listen to and read. Sales of printed books and digital books both moved up in this quarter, and audiobooks grew faster than either. Every one of those sales starts with a publisher's decision to pay for a manuscript and print or record it, and ends with a shelf, an app, or a library loan.
