Hastings Entertainment reported fourth quarter and full year results Monday morning. For the quarter, the company reported net income of $1.2 million, compared to a loss of $8.4 million a year ago, with an overall loss of $9.3 million, nearly cut in half compared to the $17.6 million the company lost in 2011. Overall book comps dropped 4.5 percent for the quarter, compared to a 2.4 percent increase at the same time last year, “primarily due to decreased sales in new and used books and magazines, partially offset by strong holiday sales of Nextbook tablets.” (Without digital sales, book comps […]
Booksellers
BN Dismissed Palo Alto Executive
In Barnes & Noble’s quarterly SEC filings, the company included a severance agreement with executive vice president, Operations and Customer Service, Dan Gilbert, who was terminated effective February 1. Gilbert was based in their Palto Alto, CA office. The company has not announced a replacement for Gilbert, and told us in response to a query that “his responsibilities have been divided among other executives.” Hired in 2010 from Cisco, he reported directly to ceo William Lynch and was responsible for “supply and demand planning, sourcing, manufacturing, operations, distribution and logistics related to digital devices including management of the Digital Products Operations […]
Barnes & Noble Reports Big Q3 Nook Device Losses, Plans “Cost Reduction Program” To Curttail Expenses
Barnes & Noble’s third quarter financial report for the period ending January 26 was not expected to deliver much in the way of good news, Thursday morning’s report was in line with those meager expectations. CEO William Lynch reiterated in the investor conference call “we’re obviously disappointed that our Nook tablets didn’t perform better over the holiday.” Following heavier losses on that device sales shortfall, Lynch said the company is “taking significant actions to begin a rightsizing of the Nook costs.” He said the company concluded that “larger technology brands have more resonance in that multifunction tablet world than we do” […]
Results Fall at France’s Fnac, As A Spin-Off Is Underway
PPR Group, the parent of France’s largest bookselling chain Fnac, reported 2012 financial results. Fnac’s story has been similar to that of big booksellers in other major territories–sales have declined (though they are still substantial, in the billions of euros) and margins have fallen as well, and the owners have been looking for someone else to take over. Last year PPR tried to sell Fnac and following what the FT called “a dearth of buyers,” they decided to spin Fnac off as a separate, standalone public company. That plan will be presented to shareholders for approval at their annual meeting […]
Barnes & Noble Warns of Bigger Nook Loss, and Lower Sales than Projected
Barnes & Noble continues to suffer–but the pain is coming from their shiny new growth business that isn’t really growing that much. The company said after the close of the market on Wednesday that “based on current forecasts” it “now expects its fiscal year 2013 Nook segment EBITDA loss to be greater than it was in fiscal 2012 and expects fiscal year 2013 Nook Media revenues to be less than $3 billion.” Just over a month ago, when reporting lower than expected Nook sales, BN had reduced sales expectations for Nook Media (which combines Nook and BN College) to “approximately […]
Indigo Sales Decline On Fewer eReaders and Lack of Hits
Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo reported a 4.9 percent decrease in sales of $335.6 million for the fiscal third quarter ending December 29. With echoes of Barnes & Noble’s holiday report, “the decrease was primarily driven by lower ereader revenues compared to last year,” along with a “lack of hit book titles in the quarter” and a reduction of their smaller-format stores by 8 locations. Superstore sales comps were down 5 percent, and small-format store comps fell 5.2 percent, though online sales increased 3.6 percent. EBITDA declined over 15 percent for the period, to $36 million. Their nonbook merchandise continues to expand: […]