Barnes & Noble Q1 Loss Narrows on “Fifty Shades” Sales

by Christopher Freeburn | August 21, 2012 10:52 am

Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS[1]) announced on Tuesday a $41 million loss for its fiscal first quarter[2], less than the $56.6 million loss it posted during the same period last year.

Revenue at the bookseller rose to $1.45 billion, up 2% from $1.42 billion in 2011.

Shares of Barnes & Noble fell more than 2% in Tuesday morning trading.

Same store sales at its book stores rose 4.6% compared to last year, driven in part  by strong sales of the spicy novel “Fifty Shades of Grey[3].” Excluding sales of its Nook electronic book-reading tablet, same-store sales jumped 7.6%, while college bookstore revenues slipped 2% compared to last year.

Sales at its Nook division remained unchanged from last year at $192 million, as sales of the device slipped, but sales of eBook and digital content for the e-reader increased 46% over last year.

Recently, Barnes & Noble cut the price for the lower-end Nook model[4] to under-price it compared to Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN[5]) Kindle Fire, and also trimmed the price of its higher end unit by $50. Both the Nook and the Kindle compete with Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL[6]) iPad and its iBooks store.

Source URL: http://investorplace.com/2012/08/barnes-noble-q1-loss-narrows-on-fifty-shades-sales/
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