Amazon is not the only company seeing a huge increase in sales over the craziest shopping weekend of the year. In fact, Barnes & Noble is reporting that it sold double the amount of NOOK units over the Thanksgiving weekend. B&N says that NOOK sales “doubled over the four-day Black Friday weekend, across all channels, based on information provided by our channel partners on a sell-through basis compared to the similar period last year.”
When B&N say that NOOK sales doubled, it doesn’t explicitly mention what percentage of those sales come from its NOOK tablets such as the NOOK HD and NOOK HD+. After all, Barnes & Noble sells a large amount of regular ereaders, which do not include its modified version of Android installed. Still, it’s likely that a good portion of those sales came from Android tablets.
B&N cites increased promotion at its retail partners for a large part of the retail sales. Specifically, Barnes & Noble mentions Walmart and Target as being major factors in its increased holiday sales. With the overall popularity of tablets in the retail channel this holiday season, these number do not come as any surprise.
B&N also announced its overall revenue for its fiscal 2013 second quarter, which ended October 27, 2012. Its consolidated revenues reached $1.9 billion, a decrease of 0.4% year-on-year. Consolidated net earnings were $2 million, compared to a loss of $7 million a year previous, which is an obvious improvement. Nook revenues totalled $160 million for the quarter, but the NOOK HD and HD+ were not included, as those numbers are reflected in its fiscal third quarter.
Sounds like NOOK has work to do. But even with these figures, we’re seeing the last days of the paper book.