Google reported second quarter earnings after the close of the market Thursday. The segment in which they report Google Play sales — “other revenues” — was up 53 percent compared to a year ago, and up 3 percent from the previous quarter. It comprised $1.6 billion for the quarter. The company said “digital sales of apps and content in our Play Store drove the year-over-year growth.” In the investors conference call, the company added that “Google Play continues to grow at breakneck speed across all types of digital content, helping developers and content partners reach users around the world.” At their IO […]
Booksellers
Barnes & Noble To Spin Off Nook As Public Company; Reports Weak Finish to Fiscal 2014
Barnes & Noble announced before the opening of the stock market Wednesday that it intends to split off its Nook Media division from the retail side, creating two separate, publicly traded companies. Shares rose over 10 percent in early morning trading on the news, up to roughly $22.5 a share. The seeds for such a spin-off were laid in the initial creation of Nook Media LLC (which includes details on how BN stores would display and sell Nook devices follow a possible separation). BN hopes to take the steps necessary to complete the separation by the end of March 2015, […]
Books-a-Million Celebrates A Flat First Quarter
Sales eked up $200,000 at Books-A-Million in their fiscal first quarter, ending May 3, reaching $103.8 million for the period. Same-store sales were down 2.5 percent, however, and the net loss of $5.6 million was significantly higher. (A year ago their loss was mitigated by a $2 million tax benefit.) Ceo Terrance Finley was upbeat nonetheless: “Sales in the first half of the quarter were strong driven by the momentum of the fourth quarter book lineup. We saw traffic slow later in the quarter, but we were pleased that we achieved our plan in our core book business, as well […]
With Flat Sales and Bigger Loss, Indigo Sees Improvement on the Horizon
Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo reported fiscal fourth quarter sales (for the period ending March 29, 2014). Sales nudged up marginally, at $184.3 million CA, but the net loss of $14.4 million was much higher than the loss of $8.2 million a year ago. Those “higher expenses were primarily driven by investments made in relation to the company’s ongoing transformational strategy.” Online sales increased by $2.8 million, or 13.1 percent in the quarter, and same-store sales were up 1.4 percent in their superstores, but fell 3.1 percent in the small-format stores. In a note opening the annual report, ceo Heather Reisman […]
Google Play Continues Growth
Google reported first quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon that were somewhat short of analysts’ expectations on both sales and earnings. Our narrow interest in their earnings reports remains the hints regarding their expanding Play store. The category that includes Play results — “other revenues” — was up 48 percent compared to a year ago, at $1.554 billion. The same revenue line comprised $1.65 for the previous holiday quarter, and just under $5 billion for all of 2013. As we noted earlier, this business category includes the Google Play store; their hardware line (Nexus devices and Chromecasts, but not Chromebooks); and their […]
Weak Sales Continue at Books-A-Million, With Q4 Profits
Books-A-Million reported fourth quarter and full year results Thursday afternoon. Unlike last year’s 14-week quarter, a once-every-six-years occurrence, BAMM’s current Q4 reverted to the usual 13 week period. Sales continued to decline, down 3.7 percent to $157.9 million compared to $163.9 million a year ago. Same-store sales continued their pattern of quarterly declines, down 1.8 percent, but net income, at $11.2 million for the quarter was up from the $8.1 million reported during the same period last year. For the year, covering 52 weeks (compared to last year’s 53 weeks) net sales decreased 5.6 percent to $470.3 million (from $498.4 […]