Dorling Kindersley Holdings Plc, 20%-owned by Microsoft Corp, has attributed its poor full year results to distribution problems and a slow pick-up to sales in the education sector, but the company believes that both problems have now been resolved. The international publisher of reference books, CD-ROMs and broadcast and video programmes reported pre-tax profits down 6.3% to UKP9.0m on turnover that rose 22.6% at UKP107.1m. In the UK, turnover grew 12.5% to UKP26.7m, in the US by 18.6% to UKP33.2m and the rest of the world by 32.4% to UKP47.2m. Dorling Kindersley’s new multimedia division, is just releasing its first five CD-ROM interactive ‘reference book’ titles: The Ultimate Human Body; Incredible Cross-Sections – Stowaway; David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work; Eyewitness Encyclopedia of Science; and My First Incredible, Amazing Dictionary. All have been well received and the division made a small contribution to the results. The company will not disclose the size of its investment in multimedia operations, but 130 of its 1,100 staff work in the division. DK Multimedia expects to publish another four titles next spring and at least six in the autumn, first for Windows machines and Macintoshes. The division has agreed co-publishing deals in Germany, France, Japan, nd quarter, off 10% and 35%, respectively. Nonetheless, second quarter sales in France totalled $62.2m, making it Europe’s third-largest market. Germany-Austria and UK-Ireland represented the first and second largest markets, with sales there up 26% and 13%, respectively. for Microsoft. Dorling Kindersley plans to pay an unchanged interim dividend of 3.3 pence.
