Amazon.com Announces Second Quarter Results

With a 52% decline in its children’s book publishing and distribution group, total revenue fell 33% at Scholastic in the quarter ended August 31, compared to the same period a year ago. Sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 were $189.2 million, down from $282.7 million in the first period of fiscal 2017. The decline was due to a lack of a blockbuster title that could compare to sales of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which was released during the first quarter of last year. Sales in Scholastic’s trade unit plunged 60% in the quarter, falling to $46.7 million from $116.9 million. While Scholastic CEO Dick Robinson pointed to a number of bestselling new titles in this quarter, including Dav Pilkey's Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties, revenue from those books was not nearly enough to offset the revenue derived from Cursed Child last year. Click Read More below for more of the story.

Did you know MIDLAND has been a proud supporter of the American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) for well over a decade, as both a member and an active sponsor? With how much of our customers’ catalog budget goes towards paper and postage, we firmly believe it’s the right thing to do. We wanted to provide an update on what the ACMA is currently focusing on and a call to action of how you can choose to help. For those not already familiar with the ACMA, they are a non-profit organization founded in 2007. The ACMA is the only industry association advocating specifically for catalog, online, direct mail, and other remote-selling merchants, as well as their suppliers. In recent years, the ACMA has had successes for the entire industry in postal enhancements, consumer privacy, and remote sales tax. Let’s look at some of the numbers. Our industry has seen five postage rate increases in the past 2.5 years. This is an average compounded increase of 39.6% for catalogs.

The Company reported first quarter 2024 revenue of $3.491 billion, an increase of 10% compared to the first quarter of 2023. First quarter GAAP net income increased 25% to $991 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share increased 28% to $3.16 as higher net income was driven primarily by strong growth in Ratings and Indices, and lower merger-related costs. Excluding the impact of Engineering Solutions (ES), revenue growth would have been 14% year over year. Adjusted net income for the first quarter increased 24% to $1,258 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 27% to $4.01. “S&P Global's first quarter results are a testament to the value we create for our customers around the world, as well as the strength of our global franchise, our world-class team, and our commitment to innovation.