How Barnes & Noble will avoid Borders' fate

J515OP

Super Moderator
Staff member
Jan 6, 2011
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The brick-and-mortar bookstore has largely been written off, but the stock is surging thanks to Nook sales.

Article: How Barnes & Noble will avoid Borders' fate- MSN Money

Excerpt:

In the short term, the biggest boost to Barnes & Nobles has been its evolution into digital sales via its BN.com website and its Nook e-reader. Longer term, the strength of Barnes & Noble could be its ability to become the only major bookseller to have survived the digital revolution -- allowing it to become a whale in the smaller pond of brick-and-mortar sales now that the competition is gone.

Here are the specifics of Barnes & Noble earnings: The New York bookseller lost $57 million, or 99 cents per share, for the quarter. Clearly that's not sign for celebration. However, the silver lining was news that total sales actually were up 2% year over year.

The reason for the increase was even more noteworthy -- a stunning 140% year-over-year revenue growth in its Nook e-reader business. Total Nook business was $277 million. In other impressive digital news, sales at BN.com jumped 37% year over year to $198 million, again thanks to the success of Nook and related digital content.

Add those digital sales up and you get an impressive $475 million. Total revenue was $1.42 billion for the quarter, meaning the Nook and BN.com now account for more than a third of Barnes & Noble's revenue. That's quite an encouraging sign to investors.

How did B&N pull this off? Well, the company is reaping the rewards of an earlier push into the digital arena than its peers. Although the Nook isn't an e-reader leader, its November 2009 release has allowed the device to at least build a decent following as a secondary player.
 

BoloMKXXVIII

Senior Member
Jul 27, 2010
65
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According to NPR B&N has about 25% of the ebook market. Considering they are battling Amazon and Apple that is very good. Expect B&N to get another slight bump in traffic once all of the Borders stores actually close. It helps that the Color Nook is a great piece of kit. I have played with the kindle and the kobo and they both get a resounding "meh" from me.
 
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