Fiscal 2012 was a big year of digital content and electronic book reader sales for Nook, the newly spun-off division of book seller Barnes & Noble Inc. But not so much for the retailer’s remaining e-commerce business.
For the 2012 fiscal year ended April 28, Barnes & Noble, No. 32 in the 2012 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide reported:
- E-commerce sales for the year declined, although the company stopped reporting online retail sales as a separate metric. In fiscal 2011 Barnes & Noble reported e-commerce sales of $858.1 million, which included revenue from Nook and BN.com.
- Sales of the Nook e-reader increased 34.2% to $933.0 million from $695.0 million in fiscal 2011. Barnes & Noble spun off Nook into a separate subsidiary in partnership with Microsoft Corp., which invested $300 million in April in the new Nook company, which is not yet named.
- Sales of Nook-related digital content, which includes digital books, magazines and apps, increased 119% year over year to $483.0 million from $220.5 million.
- Total sales increased about 1.9% to $7.12 billion in fiscal 2012 from $6.99 billion.
- Comparable-store sales increased year over year 1.4%.
- Net loss for the year was $68.9 million compared with a net loss of $73.9 million in fiscal 2011.
“We grew our business in 2012 while continuing to make the necessary investments for the future,” says Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch. “In the quarter we also announced a historic new partnership with Microsoft that will include a significant investment that will capitalize the company to fuel continued growth in digital and international expansion.”
For the fourth quarter Barnes & Noble also reported:
- Declining e-commerce sales, but didn’t break out a specific number.
- Nook sales, which include digital content and e-reader hardware, decreased 10.4% to $164.0 million from $183.0 million in Q4 of fiscal 2011. Sales of Nook, Barnes & Noble’s electronic book reader, declined as a result of higher returns from resellers, lower volume and lower average selling prices, the retailer says.
- Total sales grew year over year 0.7% to $1.38 billion from $1.37 billion.
- Comparable-store sales increased 4.5%.
Net loss was $57.7 million in the second quarter compared with a net loss of $59.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2011.