(Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc reported a net loss for the holiday quarter, hurt by a sharp decline in sales in its Nook device and e-books business, at the same time that Chairman Leonard Riggio is trying to buy the company's profitable bookstore unit.
The company said earlier this week that Riggio plans to make an offer for the bookstore business, but not its Nook and e-book business and its college bookstores.
Revenue at its Nook business, including e-books and devices, fell 25.9 percent to $316 million in the fiscal third quarter that ended January 26, as it sold fewer e-readers and tablets and had to cut prices. The loss on the Nook business more than doubled to $190.4 million.
The poor results put into question Nook's long-term viability.
"It simply doesn't have the assets to make its tablet a useful productivity tool the way Apple and Google do," Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said in a note.
Still, Barnes & Noble Chief Executive William Lynch said the company "remains committed" to the Nook devices.
Last year Barnes & Noble carved out Nook and its college bookstore business into a new unit called Nook Media. That has attracted investments from Microsoft Corp and Pearson LLC, but Barnes & Noble still owns 78 percent.
The Nook and college bookstore business has been financing itself since October, rather than needing cash from the retail business, helped by the Microsoft and Pearson investments and cash from the college bookstores, Lynch told analysts on a conference call. That business has about $240 million in cash and no debt, he said.
Digital content sales rose 7 percent in the holiday quarter even though Nook device sales fell, and Barnes & Noble is in discussions for partnerships to sell the digital content it owns, he said.
The company's shares fell in early trading but were up 7 percent after the conference call.
Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. bookstore chain, launched the first iteration of the Nook e-reader in 2009. At first the device was a hit, winning the retailer as much as 27 percent of the U.S. e-books market.
But more recently, the tablet version of Nook has struggled against rival devices from Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc, which offer far more apps and content and have improved their e-reading functions.
The disastrous holiday performance puts additional pressure to find other investors for Nook.
"The window of opportunity to sell Nook is closing," Morningstar analyst Peter Wahlstrom told Reuters.
Barnes & Noble said that at its namesake book superstores, sales at stores open at least 15 months, excluding Nook products, slipped 2.2 percent in the latest quarter.
At its college bookstores, same-store sales fell 5.2 percent.
The company posted a net loss of $6.1 million, or 18 cents per share, compared with a profit of $52 million, or 71 cents, a year earlier.
Revenue was down 10.3 percent to $2.23 billion, below the $2.4 billion Wall Street was projecting, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
(Reporting by Phil Wahba in Toronto; additional reporting by Brad Dorfman in Chicago; editing by John Wallace)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barnes-nobles-nook-ebook-sales-fall-25-9-135001554--finance.html
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