Reuters: Global Markets: Barnes & Noble says Nook, retail sales plunge, more pain coming

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Barnes & Noble says Nook, retail sales plunge, more pain coming Jun 25th 2013, 13:23 Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Neiman Marcus files for IPO as private equity owners seek exit Mon, Jun 24 2013 Oracle's software sales disappoint, stock plummets Thu, Jun 20 2013 Micron profit beats estimates as chip prices climb Wed, Jun 19 2013 In e-books trial, U.S. says Apple conspired with publishers Mon, Jun 3 2013 Tiffany's high-end jewelry sells briskly; lower end lags Tue, May 28 2013 Related Topics Hot Stocks » Asian Markets » People walk past a Barnes and Noble store in New York October 24, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid By Phil Wahba Tue Jun 25, 2013 9:23am EDT (Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) reported on Tuesday that its quarterly net loss more than doubled as sales of its Nook device and e-books continued to plunge, and it forecast a sharp drop in business at its bookstores. Shares were down 7.5 percent at $17.40 in premarket trading. Revenue of its Nook business, including e-books and devices, fell 34 percent as it sold fewer e-readers and tablets and slashed prices. Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. bookstore chain, launched the first version of the Nook e-reader in 2009 to take on Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) market-leading Kindle and secure a place in the fast growing e-books market. It now also competes with devices by Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Google Inc (GOOG.O). But fighting such deep pocketed rivals has been expensive: Barnes & Noble lost $475.4 million last fiscal year and it had to repeatedly cut prices to try to attract shoppers. To contain those losses, Barnes & Noble said its tablets will now be produced and marketed in partnership with a consumer electronics manufacturer it did not identify. It will continue to develop its e-readers itself. The picture was also bleak in its retail business, consisting of its 675 bookstores and accounting for two-thirds of sales. Sales at stores open at least 15 months fell 8.8 percent last quarter. Barnes & Noble expects retail sales to be down by a high single digit percentage in its new fiscal year. Earlier this year, Leonard Riggio, the company's chairman, founder and largest shareholder, said he wanted to buy Barnes & Noble's bookstores chain. One bright spot was its college bookstore chain, where same-store sales rose 7.5 percent. Still, Barnes & Noble forecast a low-single digit percentage decline for fiscal 2014. Company wide, revenue was down 7.4 percent to $1.28 billion. The retailer reported a net loss of $118.6 million, or $2.11 per share, for the fiscal fourth quarter ended April 27, compared with a loss of $56.9 million, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier. (Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Chris Reese) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints Comments (0) This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.

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