The Digital Reader

In addition to this morning’s press release where all these lovely, lovely numbers were glossed, spun, and (barely) referenced, B&N also released the actual numbers. Because they have to. It’s an SEC regulation or something.

Look here: http://forinvestors.barnesandnobleinc.com/edgar.cfm
and then click the link – you can download the pdf or xls file too, if you’d like.

So, choice bits from Barnes & Noble’s recent SEC 8-K filing, top line —

Sales, 52 weeks ended 30 April 2011,
B&N retail: $4.364 Billion
B&N college: $1.776 Billion
bn.com: $ .858 Billion

Big numbers. Actually, it only adds up to $6,998,565,000, not quite the $7 billion in the press release, but we’ll give them a pass on that. Rounding, and all.

CEO William Lynch had additional comments in a conference call following the press release.

Our data indicates that for the sixth consecutive quarter we continued to gain significant market share in the fast emerging eBook and digital newsstand market — faster, in fact, than any other company over that period. Our internal figures corroborated by analyst estimates, indicate we grew our market share of eBooks another 1 to 2 points in Q4. It now represents approximately 26% to 27% of the overall US market for eBooks. … Our overall NOOK business across devices, accessories, and additional content grew to over $250 million in comparable sales across retail at BN.com in Q4. That delivered close to 300% growth versus last year. As mentioned, BN.com’s gross margin gross profit expanded quarter-to-quarter from 9.5% to 13.2%, illustrating the quickly scaling digital content business model. We now sell 3 times as many digital books as all formats of physical books combined on BN.com. [emphasis everyone’s – that last bit is the one quoted & tweeted all over the place, I just put the tags on it to post it in bold]

So, .com reported gross sales of $858 Million — and not all of that is books, but if it were, that is $214 Million for actual, physical books sold online, and $643 Millions-worth of e-books.

Woot. E-books FTW.

Except the retail stores scored $4.3 BILLION — and the college div. $1.7 BILLION — and not all of that is books, but if it were:

Barnes and Noble sells 9 books — actually, lovely physical books — for every e-book.

Yay! Go Team Books!

That’s just dollars, though, and I might as well be casting bones or reading goat entrails — there’s no way to go from these reported numbers to actual unit sales [esp. as some e-books ‘sell’ for nothing!] — but throw enough BILLIONS around and it all seems very impressive.

Some details shine through, though: look at the other statistic Lynch dropped: B&N has more than 25% of the e-book market, and e-book sales [for the year just past, & let’s do the math: $643 (?) Million / $6.999 Billion] is now (up to?) 9% of their business. From zero to hundreds of millions and perhaps 10% of the store, in just under 2 years.

And growing. Actually, as a bookseller this trend should worry me.

B&N reported a loss, attributed to the .com division (expenses of $280 Million offset by merely $75 Million in gross .com profits) (brand new digital devices don’t get pulled out of a hat) and that $205 million dollar shortfall in digital was enough to drag the whole balance sheet down, to the tune of $73 million for the year.

But I personally would call that a good loss, you know, investing in the business and all.

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This is just from the Q4 Earnings Report, which included year-end numbers; I can’t wait for the actual Annual Report to see if B&N provides any more context or analysis.

DISCLAIMERS:

I’m a book lover, a believer in the intrinsic value of a good editor as it relates to the quality of the finished book products, a proponent of printing as both an art and a craft, and a collector of bound-paper-artefacts — and more-or-less neutral on ebooks, though my other positions make me (by default) a part time anti-e-book activist…

…who also happens to be employed as a retail wage slave by Barnes & Noble. This does not make me predisposed to parrot the company line or even be particularly kind to my employer [as is proven by at least one recent post] but they do sign my paychecks so I have to disclose that fact for the FCC or SEC or both.

I own a very small amount of B&N stock via an outdated 401(k) matching plan that was discontinued, like, 5 years ago; I get the proxy cards but honestly I couldn’t tell you how many shares I own. [I need to transfer whatever-the-amount-is to the same mutual funds as the rest of my 401(k) – thanks for reminding me]

Additionally – the previously-posted boilerplate disclaimer: “No statements made on this blog are meant to constitute, or even masquerade as, legitimate investment advice; any information is provided for entertainment and edification purposes only, and if that doesn’t cover my ass I invite you to claim whatever you like and I’ll be happy to show up in court drunk as a sailor on leave, for as many days in a row as it takes, to make a mockery of you, and your case, and the proceedings in general such that no judge or jury could even imagine that I’d be a credible source for my own name and birthday, let alone investment ‘guidance’. If pressed, I might even be able to produce receipts and character witnesses to prove I’ve been drunk more-or-less continuously since 1996. You do not want to call me on this.”

reposted with permission from RocketBomber

image by Travel Aficionado