British retailer WH Smith reported a half-yearly profit on Wednesday following a recovery in sales and store footfall, helped by the easing of COVID-19 curbs and a recovery in global travel.

The company, which sells everything from books and sandwiches to Bluetooth headphones, posted a headline group profit before tax and non-underlying items of 14 million pounds ($17.6 million) for the six months ended Feb. 28, compared with a loss of 19 million pounds a year earlier. ($1 = 0.7943 pounds)

(Reporting by Sinchita Mitra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)