Nook Loses Ground in Tablet War
Barnes & Noble Inc. said revenue at its consumer stores fell 10.9% during the nine-week holiday selling season ended Dec. 29, a sign that the retailer is falling behind in the crucial tablet battle with Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., and Google Inc.
While the revenue drop reflected in part a slight decline in the number of stores open, and lower online sales, it included an 8.2% drop in sales at stores open at least one year. Most of that was driven by lower sales of Nook digital devices, both the tablet and e-reader. Excluding Nook device sales, “core” same-store-sales fell 3.1%, because fewer consumers came to the stores.
