Hasta La Gadget!

The future for Barnes & Noble’s NOOK business looks pretty bleak, but the company is continuing to make the best of what they still currently have by announcing more partnerships for its NOOK Video streaming service. Movies from several big studios will be making their way to NOOK Video, including titles from Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount, as well as content from National Geographic.

While the NOOK devices and its services are available in multiple countries, it seems that today’s announcement of new partnerships are exclusive to the US, and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Other partners announced today include Relativity Media, Little Pim, and Film Buff. Of course, this is another step for Barnes & Noble to compete with Amazon’s Instant Video service and Apple’s iTunes video sector.

Of course, this move is a way for Barnes & Noble to bolster up its NOOK business. While the company is uncertain as to the future of NOOK, it seems they’re wanting to change some things around, and today’s partnerships with several big studios may point the NOOK business in the right direction, but we’ll have to wait and see.

As part of the deal, NOOK users will have access to a handful of new movies and TV shows, including The Hunger Games, the Twilight series, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven, House at the End of the Street, Mad Men, Border Wars, and Amazing Planet. The deal made with Little Pim will consist of foreign language learning for children.

Barnes & Noble NOOK Video expands with Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, and more is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t been looking good lately, and the company’s Q3 2013 earnings that were announced today prove that something is going to have to change. Barnes & Noble reported a $6.1 million loss last quarter, which is a far cry from the $52 million the company netted during the same time last year.

As for revenue, Barnes & Noble made $2.2 billion during the quarter, which is down 8.8% year-over-year. As for NOOK sales, that division probably got hit the hardest, where revenue was down 26% compared to the same time last year, but as for digital content sales, the company saw a slight jump by 6.8%.

Of course, Barnes & Noble was expecting to take a big hit, so they’re about as surprised as we were (read: not surprised at all). NOOK made $316 million this past quarter, while the same time last year, it made $426.6 million. Overall, the company saw losses across the board, including their retail business, which saw a 10.3% decrease from last year.

However, it seems that the company may actually be changing things up a bit. Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio is pondering the idea of buying the company back from shareholders, and shaking things up with the NOOK business — mostly throwing out the entire playbook and starting from scratch, but we’ll have to see what direction the company takes this year. It could be an interesting ride for B&N execs.

Barnes & Noble reports $6.1m loss in Q3 2013 earnings is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Currently the subject of many a rumor, Barnes & Noble just announced its quarterly results for Q3 2013 (its current fiscal quarter), showing what many expected: revenue is down almost 9 percent over last year to $2.2 billion, with gross earnings showing a precipitous 63 percent decline to $55.5 million. Despite well regarded (and priced) tablets, Nook business took one of the biggest hits, taking in only $316 million compared to $427 million over last year, a decline of nearly 26 percent. The company recently denied innuendo that it might be stepping away from Nook hardware altogether, but said in today’s statement that it’ll be “calibrating its business model” to look at reducing costs in the segment. However, with other expenses considered, the company has dropped $47 million so far this year, compared to a loss of only $11 million at the same time last year — a trend which the Amazon competitor will need to put the brakes on, one way or the other.

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Source: Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble has put up an excellent fight over the past few years against the rising tide of digital competitors like iPad, Kindle Fire, etc.

But it would seem that the bookseller has still come up a bit short, as the Wall Street Journal reports that the company has plans to shut down nearly 20 stores per year over the course of the next decade.

Just last week, we learned that B&N had a rough holiday sales season with a 10.9 percent sales decrease over last year’s holiday season.

Barnes & Noble currently has around 689 retail stores in operation, but the cuts would eliminate around a third of those stores, leaving the total somewhere between 450 to 500 stores.

However, Barnes & Noble’s Mitchell Klipper, who delivered the news to the WSJ, explains that less than 3 percent of B&N stores lose money. Still, shutting down stores is expected to strengthen B&N’s hardware business, including the Nook HD and Nook HD+, which has been a growing focus at the company.

In the face of such a digital shift, it would appear that the bookseller expects its brick-and-mortar business to become more and more of a liability over the coming years.

Barnes & Noble announced today that Pearson, a British publisher and education company, will be investing $89.5 million in Barnes & Noble‘s NOOK business for a 5% stake, valuing the business at $1.79 billion, which is up from $1.7 billion earlier this spring. Barnes & Noble will own 78.2% of its NOOK business after this is all said and done.

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.

Pearson to invest $89.5m in Barnes & Noble NOOK business is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.