St. Louis, Missouri-based Build-A-Bear Workshop reported a 6% bump in total revenue to US$123.8 million for Q1, while sales from its Euro operations shot up a whopping 52% this quarter to US$16.4 million.

However, State-side the picture looks a little different. Net income was down to US$6.7 million from US$8.1 million during the same period last year. Comparable stores sales in North America declined 13.1% versus a decline of 6.9% in Q1 2007, while comparable stores sales in Europe increased by 14.5%. This is the first quarter the Company has reported the figure for European operations.

Build-A-Bear Workshop chairman and Chief Executive Bear, Maxine Clark says the company is pleased with the European growth and will be concentrating on expense control and strategic investments to pad its bottom line. To that end, the retailer intends to decrease the pace of new store openings in North America in 2008. Plans are in the works to add 20 new stores in the territory to its existing 274, down from 39 openings last year. In Europe, meanwhile, the retailer is adding five new stores to its 51 outlets, down from the 11 stores it opened overseas in 2007.