WH Smith almost doubles profits as firm announces plan to open 110 new stores in airports and train stations

The group has also announced plans to open 110 new stores across travel locations such as railways and airports, including 60 in North America. It expects to invest around £140 million throughout 2024.

Carl Cowling, group chief executive, said: “This has been another year of significant progress for the Group.

“Our global travel business is growing in all our key markets. It is highly scalable with multiple medium and long term growth opportunities and we are seeing great results from sharing our expertise and innovation across our different geographies.”

The firm’s travel divisions all saw strong growth, with total revenue up 43 per cent up to £1.3 billion.

Total revenue for its Travel UK arm rose 36 per cent, up to £709 million while in North America, the group saw revenue grow 32 per cent to £380 million. Revenue for the rest of the world grew 99 per cent to £235 million.

This equated to trading profits of £101 million for the UK Travel section of the company, and £52 million for North America. For the rest of the world, the company saw trading profits of £13 million.

The group has proposed a final dividend of 20.8p per share, taking its full year dividend to 28.9p per share. It said this reflects strong trading and cash generation combined with “confidence in future prospects”.

Mr Cowling added: “Our North American business is benefitting from our forensic approach to space management which has always been a key feature of our UK Travel operations.

“In the same way, the ability of our North American business to provide bespoke retail formats is now being successfully harnessed outside of the US."

The firm said that it had started the new financial year well, with total revenue in Travel UK up 13 per cent, and North America up 15 per cent, despite uncertainty in the economic environment.

Mr Cowling added that the group was “confident” in its outlook for the new financial year.

The group did, however, see a decline in highstreet revenue of one per cent, down to £469 million.

In June, the BBC reported that WH Smith has said it would not open any more UK high street stores, instead focussing on its travel divisions.

Earlier in June, the company announced that it had struck a deal which would see retailer Toys R Us return to the UK high street, with concession stores opening in nine WH Smith branches.