(Bloomberg) -- Bloomsbury Publishing Plc shares soared in London trading after the publisher said it expects sales this year to exceed the market’s expectations amid a boom in demand for its fantasy and science fiction titles.
Sales from novels by New York-based fantasy fiction writer Sarah J. Maas more than doubled in the first half of the year, driving revenue from the consumer division up 47%, the company said in a statement on Thursday. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series continues to be a bestseller 27 years after the first book was published, it said.
Warner Brothers Discovery Inc.’s plan for a seven-season run of a new streaming series, based on the original seven Harry Potter books, should spur more demand for the enduring titles, it said. A Netflix Inc. adaptation of Chinese science fiction trilogy The Three Body Problem by author Cixin Liu, first published 16 years ago, also spurred “stellar” first-half sales, the company said.
It expects the second and third seasons of the series to drive yet more demand for the novels.
The shares jumped 9.1% to 744 pence at 9:51 a.m. in London trading. They earlier rose as much as 10%, the biggest intraday gain since February. The stock has climbed almost 60% this year.
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