Bricks & Mortar Blues | Profit up at Waterstones despite sales dip | The Bookseller

It’s not all bad news for the retail trade, or maybe the cost management efforts have finally started to hit home in some places:

Waterstone’s increased profit by £6.7m last year as like-for-like sales fell by 3.8%, according to financial results released today.
The HMV Group announced in its financial report that in the 52 weeks to 30th April 2011, Waterstone’s profit grew from £2.8m to £9.5m. During that time however, total sales for the high street bookseller dropped by £14.4m to £499.2m and like-for-like sales fell by 3.8%. In the same time period, sales at the HMV Group as a whole dropped from £2.02bn to £1.87bn and like-for-like sales plummeted by 11%. After tax and the disposal costs, HMV Group made a loss of £121.7m, an improvement on the £152.8m loss last year.
Profit up at Waterstones despite sales dip | The Bookseller.