Barnes & Noble will announce its Q3 2013 earnings next week, but things aren’t looking good for the book-selling franchise. The company expects a higher loss from its NOOK business for fiscal year 2013 than originally expected in January. The company didn’t reveal specific numbers, but their earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization showed a loss of $262 million for their fiscal year 2012, and they expect 2013 to be even worse.
The company also expects their NOOK revenue this year to be less than $3 billion, which means that the company didn’t have a very successful holiday season as well. The growing popularity of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets and Apple’s iPad was at the expense of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK business, which ended up suffering during the busiest shopping time of the year.
Plus, if the company’s Q2 2013 earnings were bad, than Q3′s numbers must be plain miserable. Last quarter, Barnes & Noble sold fewer NOOK slates in its stores than previous quarters, and the company saw dips in revenue all across the board. NOOK revenue only account for just over 8% of the company’s total revenue that quarter.
Just before the turn of the new year, Barnes & Noble announced that British publishing company Pearson was going to invest $89.5 million in the NOOK business. We haven’t heard much about that deal since its announcement, but it’s possible that the company may bring it up at next week’s earnings call.
This week Amazon has unveiled Kindle book rentals in an extremely quiet fashion, opting to test it out with the public before doing any sort of press on the topic – but you can try it out right this minute if you wish. What you’re going to be doing here is renting a title for a certain amount of time, with the price going up based on how many months you’d like to keep it around. Thirty day increments appear at the moment to be the turn-over for how much you’ll be paying, 30, 60, 90, and 120 day periods being available for less than a dollar difference.
If you’re paying for a digital book, you have the right to look at that book as much as you’d like – and in most cases, download it to a limited number of devices at any one time. Here with Amazon’s Kindle rentals, you’ll be doing the same – but instead of your limits stopping at the amount of devices you can download to, you’re limited to time. The price being significantly less for these limited amounts of time may just be the ticket to those of you out there that have steel trap memories and tight pocketbooks in the e-generation.
If you have a peek at one of the very, very few titles available with rentals thus far by the name of Theories of International Politics and Zombies (courtesy of tipster Karen at Zats Not Funny, you’ll find that the Buy Price is (as it usually is) a little more than half of the price of the list price. The rent price, then, is less than half that cost – 80% off the original list price. Of course that’s the price to rent a digital copy for 30 days instead of owning the original print book forever, but the price difference is extremely important to the author in the end.
Is this the future of literature? Will we be working with Spotify services for books before too long where authors are compensated for each read? Maybe that’s better for the author than the print process – who can tell? One way or the other, you’re going to be able to rent books with your Kindle tablet or Kindle-capable mobile device immediately if not soon – have a peek and see if you can find any titles with the ability!
Kobo has unveiled its 2012 sales, which are reported to have doubled year-over-year. In addition, the company scored 4 million new customers since last summer, giving it a grand total of 12 million registered customers and a cool 20-percent of the ereader market worldwide. Among other things, Fifty Shades of Grey was the most read ebook on the device last year.
Last year marked some big milestones for Kobo, including the launch of three devices: the Kobo Glo, Arc, and Mini. The company expanded its service into Japan, Spain, South Africa, Italy, Portugal, Brazil, and the Netherlands, and reports that customers purchased more ebooks on average than they did in 2011.
According to the press release, Kobo’s users read in excess of 22 million pages on Christmas, with Canadians topping the list at an average of 200 pages read per customers. Users in the United States were second, averaging 160 pages read per customer, and British users were third at an average of 93 pages each. The most popular genre was Romance, which was particularly favored in Canada, while the Hunger Games was the most widely-read ebook series.
Kobo’s CEO Michael Serbinis offered this statement. “In December we celebrated Kobo’s third anniversary as well as the biggest month for the company yet. Millions of new users registered with Kobo in December alone, annual device sales soared with millions of Kobo eReaders bought, and eBook sales nearly doubled from the previous year. 2012 was truly outstanding for our company and our network of booksellers and retailers around the world.”
Hardbound books, apparently, are soooo 20th century — at least for the upcoming BiblioTech library in San Antonio, Texas’ south side. When the shiny, new public library opens its doors to bookworms this fall, visitors will notice something important missing: actual books. Instead, the facility will be serving up ebooks — about 10,000 digital titles or so — in an attempt to supplement the area’s traditional library system with some new-school cool. To help users partake in its content, BiblioTech will also carry actual e-readers for users to check out. Footage of the media event shows what appears to be a Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch as the facility’s e-reader of choice. Checked-out ebooks are also programmed to be accessible by the borrower for a two-week period. Going the digital route has certainly been a growing trend — 3M recently launched a Cloud Library lending service while one Austrian town kicked off its own unique e-book repository based on stickers equipped with QR codes and NFC chips. As ongoing issues involving Penguin show, however, digital lending sadly still has some hurdles to overcome.
Still have an old Kindle Touch sitting around? You have some new features to play with. Despite replacing it with a brighter son, Amazon is still updating its original touch sensitive e-reader — outfitting it with a new UI, enhanced parental controls and Whispersync for Voice, which shares bookmarks between audio and text versions of the same digital tome. Amazon’s improved the Kindle Touch shopping experience too, adding recommended content offers to users and remembering where they left off in a sample after they purchase the full text. Finally, the company injected the Kindle Touch with better comic and graphic novel navigation — allowing readers to view their funnybooks panel by panel, rather than by the full page alone. The update will be delivered wirelessly, though users that fancy their USB cable can install the new features the old fashioned way. Check out Amazon’s “what’s new with Kindle Touch” page for a run down of the update’s features.
Microsoft invested $300 million in NOOK earlier this year, and they own 16.8% of the business, and while Pearson will only own 5% at this point, they’re thinking about purchasing another 5% sometime in the future. The value of the NOOK business remains more than double the market capitalization of Barnes & Noble, and shares of the company jumped 10% to $15.83 in premarket trading.
According to Barnes & Noble, Pearson’s investment in NOOK Media will essentially pair up Pearson’s leading expertise in online learning with Barnes & Noble’s expertise in online distribution and customer service. The company says this will “facilitate improved discovery of available digital content and services, as well as seamless access.”
Barnes & Noble said that its e-reader business would fall short of projections for the year and that holiday sales overall would be below expectations. The NOOK has been trying to challenge Amazon‘s dominance of the e-book market, and this latest investment gives the business backing from one of the world’s largest education companies, as well as the publisher of The Financial Times newspaper.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD was the retail giant’s best-selling product over the holiday season, with the Android-based ereader-tablet also the most gifted and most-wished-for item on the virtual shelves. The company still refuses to give specific sales figures, but says that the Kindle Fire HD has held the top spot in all three categories since it landed fifteen weeks ago.
In fact, Kindle is an Amazon success story all round, not just the more direct iPad-rivaling models. In addition to the Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire, the Kindle Paperwhite and regular Kindle ereaders together hold the top four positions in the Amazon worldwide sales charts.
That hardware has seen digital content demand jump too. Amazon says it saw its biggest day for digital downloads ever on December 25, as over 23m movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, books, audiobooks, apps, and games, were downloaded on Christmas day. That’s not solely to Kindle devices, of course, since Amazon also offers the Appstore for general Android devices, and streaming media to other platforms.
Kindle Fire HD sales were already buoyant. Amazon had announced back in October that the tablet was the best-selling product across all the countries it operates in.
Today is the day that you’re going to want to purchase one of two ereaders if you’ve not already done so – and if you want one, of course: both the Nook Simple Touch and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD have had their prices slashed this morning. The oddest thing has happened – two of the biggest competitors in the ereader space have discounted one of their hero devices – imagine that! Of course the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is not even beginning to be the same sort of tablet as the Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch when it comes down to it, but they’re both on the cut – and in Amazon’s case, just for today!
We’ve had a peek at the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 very recently in our full review, this showing off how you’re not just getting an ereader with this package, you’re getting a full tablet. But not just a full tablet, mind you, an Amazon window into their full content library – don’t expect an Android tablet here, it only runs the software under the hood. This device has a full-color display as well, nothing like the Barnes & Noble offering. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has been discounted by $50, this making the price closer to $250 USD in its least expensive iteration.
The Nook Simple Touch on the other hand is an ereader in every sense of the word. Here you’ve got an eink display and a size that’s much tinier than the comparatively massive Kindle Fire HD 8.9. This machine has “16 levels of gray” and is made for reading text-based-books from start to finish. The hardware here is 6.5 x 5 x 0.47 inches and weighs in at a tiny 7.48 ounces, and the discount is permanent, it seems: $79 USD total, down from the $99 it was previously.
Have a peek at our lovely 2012 holiday gift guide for tablets as well to make sure you’re up to date on all of the best-of-2012 action for the holidays. It might be time to decide between the ereader and the full tablet experience here at the dawn of 2013 – perhaps time for a switch?
With the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 comes the most well-rounded Amazon content delivery system you’ve ever held in two hands – but that’s all it is. This device is being sold as exactly the device it was meant to be: the Amazon Vending Machine HD 8.9, and it takes its job seriously. If you could never bring yourself to pick up an iPad and the Apple-bound content environment that is iTunes, nor could you purchase a Nexus 7 or 10 as connected to Google Play, Amazon might be the third heat you were looking for.
Content Delivery System
It’s a mistake to compare the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to any other tablet on the market not inside the Kindle Fire family unless you’re a software developer, a hacker, or you’re just about to jump into the digital content arena and have never before purchased yourself a digital video. With the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, the iPad 4th generation (the one with the Lightning port that’s in the store now), and the Google Nexus 10, you’ve got extremely high definition displays, and it’s there you should start if you’re demanding to see the best hardware package.
But here’s the thing: there’s a massive amount of Android tablets on the market today, each of them able to access the whole of the Google Play store. There’s several iPad models in the line’s history, and a set of rather similar Kindle Fire models tablets out there able to access the Amazon content system – but Amazon’s system doesn’t stop at the Kindle Fire. The only system that stops at the hardware (and vice versa) is the iPad.
What the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does is place the Amazon content system directly at the center of a machine that’s been checked and approved by Amazon itself. With that, it’s been limited to the Amazon content system so that you can be assured an experience that Amazon approves of – Apple does that same thing with the iPad. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is indeed a fabulous place to access your Amazon content.
The connectivity on this device is wi-fi but a 4G LTE bit of AT&T mobile data is available from Amazon if you pick up the edition with that ability. The offer behind that LTE is interesting at $50 a year, but with a limit of 250MB of data a month – this means you’ll be able to use this device for email using that data, and if you start watching streaming content or downloading media, you’ll go over in no time at all. Watch the overage costs rack up and that smile will turn upside down real quick.
Hardware
The display is extremely nice, bringing on a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels over 8.9 inches, that being 254ppi. That’s less than the iPad 4 and less than the Nexus 10, but up at this resolution we’re not able to tell the difference without getting up real, real close – closer than we’d get on any normal day, that’s for sure.
Colors are reproduced extremely accurately and with the darks on this machine being as deep as they are, we’ve been using this machine as a content machine via the miniHDMI as a top pick. Downloading an HD video from Amazon’s collection and playing it on the device or through the microHDMI port to an HDTV makes for a massively impressive experience – amongst the best on the market if not straight up the best there is with a wire.
The speakers on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 are Dolby powered and stereo – bringing on two channels for real. The speakers on this device are loud enough that you’ll not want to be a room away from a sleeping baby when them turned all the way up – you’ll wake that baby up. It’s unfortunate that they’re facing backwards as most of the tablet universe still has them aiming, but holding the tablet with two hands has the sound bouncing off your palms – that’s good enough for most.
Battery life on this device is rather good, especially since you’re only working with wi-fi connectivity at this time. LTE might make you bust down a bit quicker when it comes around, but for now you’ve got a couple of days at least with daily usage as a game-player and TV show downloader/watcher. Chatting on Skype (which is, mind you, generally OK but certainly not the nicest Skype experience on the market by a long shot due to less-than-perfect video quality) will drain your battery quickest.
There’s also a rather nice case/cover that you’ll probably want to pick up from Amazon if/when you purchase the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. It’s made by Amazon and looks like what you’re seeing above, complete with a magnetic “smart” off/on function (as the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does indeed have that sensor) and has a rubbery bumper that allows it to stand up like you’re seeing here too.
Performance
With the processor mentioned above you’ve got a suitable environment in which you can play most if not all of the most high-powered games on the market. What you’ll see in the video below is Asphalt 7, a racing game, opened and tested in a real basic way just so you can see how quick everything renders out and responds – just as nice as the nicest devices on the market today.
We’ve heard of some people having small problems with the user interface and non-immediate opening of apps and switching between screens, but any such problems were negligible from our perspective. This is a high-quality device and Amazon has created a user interface over the top of Android that should do the original creators proud.
You’ve got a processor from Texas Instruments that’s one of the rarest on the market today, the OMAP4470 dual-core used only on the Nook HD family, Samsung Galaxy Premier, the BlackBerry Dev Alpha B, and a variety of oddities. This processor works perfectly well for this device, comparing in performance with the other dual-core processor on them market in a very general sense to the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor we’ve seen on a large number of smartphones this year including the Galaxy S III and HTC One series.
The processing power here does not bring us as ultra-swift a system as we’re seeing on the Nexus 10 or the iPad 4th gen – but the difference is invisible if you’re not using both one next to the other or doing extensive processor tests in a lab. Once you’ve got it in the lab, on the other hand, you’ll find the device ranking up on systems such as AnTuTu benchmark system with a score of 7247 – nowhere near the quad-core competition.
Store Access
If you’re not planning on purchasing videos from Amazon, you don’t want to use Amazon’s system for music, you’ve got no intention of purchasing any ebooks from Amazon, and you don’t want to use Amazon’s App Store, this is not the tablet for you. This unit is first and foremost a window into the Amazon library of digital content, and you’re going to have to pay for it.
The Amazon store exists at all corners in this device, and the different kinds of media you’re consuming here sit right up front and center. The first display you see on this device once you’ve started it up is a giant set of icons in a side-scrolling gallery that says quite clearly “you’re about to start” rather than “welcome to your Amazon tablet.” If there’s a scale from tablet interfaces that goes from standard computer to window, it starts at Android, moves up to the iPad, and ends at the Amazon Kindle Fire – this is not a device you’re going to use like your notebook or your desktop, it’s a consumption window.
X-Ray
There’s a brand overlay that exists between two different bits of in-content excellence that come with this device working with content from Amazon called X-Ray. This system works in videos as a direct connection to IMDB, showing the actors that are working in essentially any given scene and with books showing keywords and connections to them throughout the story you’re reading – find all the Ali Babas in the story and link in to them with ease.
This system works with a lovely collection of ebooks and videos coming from Amazon – not every single piece of content coming from Amazon, but certainly enough to warrant calling it a great selling point for this tablet. We’re always wondering who the heck that guy is getting his face cut off by the monster in the horror film scene we’re watching – now we know!
Kindle FreeTime
The folks at Amazon have come up with an extremely simple home screen replacement app that brings forth an environment for your kids. This environment is created by you, the parent, and is so simple that you can’t mess it up. You open up Kindle FreeTime and select the profile you want, deciding there what settings you want your child to work with and what apps/media they’re going to be able to see, and bang, you’re done.
From there the person in that profile – child or not – needs a password to exit again. That’s so simple that we wish Amazon would release FreeTime for the Google Play app store – please? Pretty please? For now you’ll need a Kindle Fire to use Kindle FreeTime – and for some parents that might be a deal-maker.
Wrap-up
If you’re deeply invested in the Amazon universe for content, this device is the best content delivery system you’re going to be able to buy today. It’s the biggest tablet Amazon makes at the moment and gives you access to all of your Amazon-held content in high definition, top to bottom. It’s not an Android tablet (as far as the Google Play store is concerned), it’s not an iPad, and it’s not a Windows device. It’s a unique tablet that’s deeply engrained in the Android environment.
The price of this device in its wi-fi configuration – that being the one we’re looking at here in this review – is $299 USD, and for that price there’s no competition unless you want a smaller display and a different content environment. For Amazon users, there’s nothing else – unless of course you consider the smaller version: see our Kindle Fire HD 7 full review as well.
This week Barnes & Noble has made the call on their financial second quarter, citing increased spending on their Nook division to keep pace with Amazon.com and Apple. The company made it clear that as the Nook accounts for 8.5 percent of their total revenue, it wasn’t going away any time soon – meanwhile same-store in-store book sales dropped over Black Friday weekend – imagine that! Barnes & Noble also reported that quarterly sales of its high-margin digital periodicals and books went up significantly.
Chief Executive William Lynch let it be known that his forecast for the fiscal year stands – he believes that the Nook segment of the company’s loss will narrow without a doubt. It’s not out of the question as just half way through the fiscal year the business is in, loss had increased just 6.1 percent to $108.1 million – much narrower than it could have been.
Meanwhile the new Nook HD and Nook HD+ tablets were launched right after the company’s second fiscal quarter – that being the one ending on October 27th of 2012. The real battle, then, is now for Barnes & Noble’s tablet warriors to take out the iPad mini as well as the Kindle Fire HD 7 and 8.9. They’re certainly making strides in Target and Wal-Mart stores, it seems, as the company reported sales doubling from last year over Thanksgiving weekend.
This was helped at least a little bit by the fact that Target and Walmart no longer sell Kindle tablets of any kind. Lynch noted that Barnes & Noble continues to rule a 25-30 percent share of the e-books market in the USA, while net quarterly income was positive at $2.2 million – this much, much better than last year’s results at this time which were a loss of $6.6 million.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
