eReaders: B&N Nook Sales Drop Continues

From The Bookseller:

Nook sales at Barnes & Noble have continued to drop in the first quarter of its new financial year.
The American bookselling chain has reported that Nook sales plummeted by 20.2% year-on-year to $153m (£97.7m) in the first quarter ending 27th July 2013.
While the revenue decline is substantial, it is not as steep as the previous quarter, where sales in B&N’s Nook unit dropped by 34%. At that point, the company announced it would proceed to manufacture tablet devices with a third party going forward, while still continuing to produce black and white and colour e-reading devices independently.

More From the B&N Earnings Announcement:

Digital content sales were $69 million for the quarter, a decline of 15.8% compared to a year ago, due in part to lower device unit sales as well as the comparison to The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies. Excluding the impact of these two titles, digital content sales decreased 6.9%.

Barnes & Noble Retail (Stores and Online)

The Retail segment, which consists of the Barnes & Noble bookstores and BN.com businesses, had revenues of $1.0 billion for the quarter, a decrease of 9.9% from the prior year. The sales decrease was attributable to a comparable store sales decrease of 9.1% for the quarter, store closures and lower online sales, in line with company expectations. First quarter comparable bookstore sales decreased, reflecting lower NOOK device unit volume and a title lineup last year that included unusually strong sales from The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies. “Core” comparable bookstore sales, which exclude sales of NOOK products, decreased 7.2% for the quarter. Excluding the impact of the two mentioned trilogies, Core comparable bookstore sales decreased 2.9%.

See Also: Full Text Transcript of Earnings Call

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