Nook Demand Fails to Increase Sales for Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE:BKS) reported on December 1, 2011 that sales of its Nook e-readers and digital content had grown 85 percent in its fiscal second quarter — and that total revenue had slipped anyway. Revenue for the quarter ended October 29 was $1.89 billion, down slightly from $1.9 billion a year earlier.

The Nook business — devices, accessories and digital content — reached $220 million on a comparable basis. BN.com sales rose 17 percent to $206 million. Sales at the company’s retail stores fell 1 percent to $918 million.

The net loss narrowed to $6.6 million, or 17 cents a share, from $12.6 million a year earlier, but that was still worse than Wall Street expected. The company said it would spend more to acquire Nook customers and guided full-year EBITDA to the low end of its $210 million to $250 million range.

The Nook Tablet, a $249 color device, had launched on November 7, and the company called it the fastest-selling Nook in its history. “We expect to sell millions of devices during our third quarter, adding to the millions of current NOOK customers,” chief executive William Lynch said.

What happened next. The Nook never became the growth engine Barnes & Noble was betting on. Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Apple’s iPad took the market, the company pulled back from designing its own tablets in 2013, and the retailer itself was taken private by Elliott Management in 2019.