Barnes & Noble followed their headline fourth quarter press release with more extensive SEC filings by the end of the day on Thursday providing a number of additional details worth reviewing: Settlement Credits Perhaps contributing to the company’s slightly positive sales forecast for the new fiscal year, BN says that their customers have been allocated up to $95.7 million in total credits as a result of Apple’s settlement of the ebook pricing lawsuit. Though redemptions of the first round of ebook settlement credits, funded by the publishers, were higher than anticipated — running at about 76 percent of the available funds — for […]
Booksellers
Barnes & Noble Ends Fiscal Year On A Loss
Barnes & Noble reported fiscal fourth quarter sales after the close of the market on Wednesday. Sales fell $33 million (or 3.6 percent) to $877 million in the quarter. Retail sales fell $17 million — even as physical book unit sales as measured by Nielsen Bookscan continue to rise, as Amazon gains market share at BN’s partial expenses, and Nook sales, which don’t have all that much further to fall, declined $10.5 million, to $42 million for the quarter. Same-store sales were down 0.8 percent in the quarter, and the company continued to blame “store closures and lower online sales.” […]
Bookselling: Sales Rise At Indigo In Fourth Quarter, and More
Canada’s dominant bookstore chain Indigo reported results for their fiscal fourth quarter, ending April 2. Sales for the extended 14-week quarter were $220 million (CA), up $34 million from a year ago. On a 13-week, comparable store basis, superstore sales grow 14.7 percent, while small-format stores were up 15.8 percent. Online sales rose 9.8 percent. The net loss for the quarter was $13.4 million, compared to $13.9 million a year ago. General merchandise (including their American Girls boutiques) showed “double-digit growth” during the fiscal year, with books growing by “high single-digits,” particularly “boosted by the trend for adult coloring books.” Sales for the full 53-week fiscal […]
Amazon Has Better-than-Expected Profit
Amazon reported first quarter sales on Thursday afternoon following the close of the market, with net income of $513 million (or $1.07 per share) that was almost double what analysts were expecting. The company’s shares are up close to 10 percent in early Friday trading as a result. Net sales rose 28 percent to $29.13 billion, also well ahead of projections. As in previous quarters, the real source of the profits is the fast-growing AWS web services business, where operating income was $604 million. North American media sales of $3.21 billion were up 8 percent (gaining $239 million) and international media […]
Apple Falls Below Low Expectations — But “Services” Still Grows
As expected, Apple reported the first year-over-year quarterly decline in revenue in more than a decade, as sales of $50.56 billion fell below analysts’ lowered expectations. Sales were down in every region except Japan, with China and the rest of Asia declining more than the US (-10%) and Europe (-5%). But in the segment that has the most relevance for the book business, and the area where they are directly competitive with Amazon and Google, the “services” line item that includes the iTunes stores, revenue still grew. Sales of $5.99 billion were up 20 percent from $5 billion a year ago. […]
Google Play Gains Again, Even As Earnings Are Below Analysts’ Estimates; Apple China iBooks Shutdown Confirmed
The headline from Thursday afternoon’s earnings release from Alphabet/Google was that earnings came in below analysts’ expectations, with first quarter sales of $20.3 billion up 17 percent. In the segment we follow, the glamorous “Other revenue” that incorporates the Google Play store, sales of $2.1 billion were up 24 percent (though 1 percent below the previous, holiday quarter). In the investor conference call, the company said, “Year-over-year performance was driven by Play as well as continued strong growth in cloud and apps and a nice contribution from hardware.” Apple‘s earnings report was postponed until next week. In the meantime, the […]