As publishing people had feared since the abrupt announcement that CEO Ronald Boire was dismissed by Barnes & Noble after less than a year on the job, the retailer reported disappointing results for their fiscal first quarter, ending July 30, on Thursday morning. Sales of $914 million fell 6.6 percent compared to a year ago, with a consolidated net loss of $14.4 million, or $0.20 per share (compared to a loss of $7.8 million, or $0.27 per share, a year ago). That’s well short of analysts’ expectations of $958 million in sales and a loss per share of 13 cents, and investors who fell for the misplaced enthusiasm yet again of […]
Booksellers
Barnes Away
The financial weekly Barron’s has had a soft spot for Barnes & Noble’s stock for years, but unfortunately they have been pretty consistently — and significantly — wrong. Publishers are cranky about the company’s underperformance in the marketplace, as sales keep ebbing even as print book sales rise, and with the abrupt departure of ceo Ronald Boire many people are expecting yet another disappointing set of results when the company reports fiscal first quarter earnings on Thursday morning. Lightly followed by analysts, the consensus expectations for the quarter still estimate sales of $958 million (down about $20.5 million from a year ago), […]
Results Steady At WH Smith, But…
On Wednesday WH Smith issued a short trading notice in advance of their annual results on August 31, saying the report will be “in line with expectations.” Simple enough. That release inspired an equally short but potentially confusing Bloomberg piece that declares, “In the era of Facebook and Twitter, a British newspaper seller pre-dating Queen Victoria is providing bigger gains for investors than modern technology. Over the last five years, WH Smith shares have eclipsed an index that also includes Apple and Google, even as its sales have maintained a steady decline.” Yes, WH Smith’s stock rose sharply between January […]
Merchandise Sales Lift Indigo
Canadian “book, gift and specialty toy retailer” Indigo reported results for their fiscal first quarter, ending July 2. Sales rose 4.4 percent, or $8.2 million, to $193.1 million for the quarter, “driven mainly by the continued double digit growth of key general merchandise categories.” Book sales were up on a same-store basis, but flat overall because they operated one less superstore and three fewer small-format stores than a year ago. Online sales rose 3.8 percent, to $24.9 million. Their net loss was the same, at $9 million. Since a year ago, general merchandise has grown to 34.1 percent of sales (from 30.6 percent) as print has ebbed […]
A Good Quarter for Amazon, With Media Sales Growing
Amazon reported second quarter results, with North American media sales of $2.928 billion up 12 percent (from $2.62 billion a year ago), as international media sales rose 9 percent $2.283 billion (from $2.094 billion a year ago). That’s a total of $765 million lower than competitor Apple’s just reported second-quarter media and related “services” sales, now trailing Apple by more than $1 billion for the first half of the year in these comparable segments. Overall Amazon had a strong quarter, with sales of $30.4 billion, up $23.2 billion a year ago, and much stronger net income of $857 million (on $1.285 billion […]
Apple Beats Low Expectations
Apple reported fiscal third quarter results on Tuesday afternoon, posting sales of $42.4 billion and earnings of $7.8 billion. While well below the comparable results from a year ago, investors were expecting a softer quarter; by slightly outperforming analysts’ estimates, Apple’s stock was up by close to 7 percent in after-hours trading. As in the last couple of quarters, with softening hardware sales, the company is focusing more on their still-growing “services” business, which includes iTunes and the app store. At $5.976 billion for the quarter, that line item up was up 19 percent over the same quarter a year ago, […]