Barnes & Noble reported third quarter sales of $2.175 billion for the period ending January 10. Same-store sales at regular BN outlets were down 5.5 percent compared to a year, and fell 4.7 percent overall, at $1.4 billion. College bookstore sales of $566 million were down 1.3 percent. BN.com sales grew 32 percent to $210 million–and were up 67 percent in the month of January, driven by nook sales. (BN’s quarters no longer align following the integration of the College division, but last year in March store comps were down 7.3 percent–so they are underperforming an already-lowered bar.) During the quarter, BN opened three stores and closed nine, Dalton closed 46 locations, and BN College opened three stores
The good news: EBITDA for the period was $204 million, will consolidated net earnings of $80.2 million, or $1.38 per share. Earnings were at the high end of the company’s guidance, and four cents about what analysts were expecting. The bad news: full-year earnings are expected to come in at between 23 cents and 53 cents a share, which is below analysts’ consensus expectation of 58 cents. They expect BN store comps to continue their decline, at 2 to 4 percent in the coming quarter.
The stock was down almost five percent in early trading this morning.
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