AAP Preliminary Report Puts Religion Book Sales up 7.8% in 2023 (publishersweekly.com)

Simon & Schuster finished 2017 on a high note, posting a 12% increase in revenue in the fourth quarter over the comparable period in 2016. The publisher also saw a 22% jump in operating income. With the strong finish, sales for the full year rose 8% over 2016, to $830 million, while earnings increased 11%, to $132 million. S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy said 2017 was a year in which most of S&S's plans came to fruition. She noted that all four of the publisehr's major operating groups posted sales gains over the previous year. The audio group, led by sales of downloadable audio, saw the biggest gain, followed by the international group, the adult group, then the children's group.The company's distribution business also had higher sales in the year. Click Read More below for additional information.

We continue to expand our delivery operations to help customers get the items they need when they need them, and it’s been an exciting journey. From Express delivery, where customers can have items delivered to their doorsteps in as little as two hours, to InHome, where they can get those orders placed right into their refrigerators, we’re proud to offer customers multiple options that help them save time and money. One solution we’ve been working on over the last year is delivery via drone. Today we’re announcing we’ll be expanding our DroneUp delivery network to 34 sites by the end the year, providing the potential to reach 4 million U.S. households across six states – Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. This provides us the ability to deliver over 1 million packages by drone in a year.

As part of its ongoing commitment to return value to shareholders, L Brands, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a new $250 million share repurchase program, which includes $10.3 million remaining under its previous $250 million share repurchase program.