In its preliminary report on 2011 results, Bertelsmann said sales rose slightly in the year, to €15.3 billion (previous year: €15.1 billion), but operating EBIT fell to €1.7 billion from €1.8 billion. The company said “rapidly growing” e-book sales at Random House and a good performance of the advertising-driven businesses were "offset by planned start-up losses for new growth platforms and the weak business performance of some of the printing operations, as well as declines in the replication and direct-marketing businesses."
Complete results will be published on March 28.
