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Tag: Financials

  • Barnes & Noble Posts Q3 2012 Results, Announces 8GB Nook

    The financial results for Barnes & Noble third quarter of the financial year have been released and, initially, all signs point in good directions for the bookseller. This might come as a surprise to some since speculation grew over the last year that the bookseller was headed toward bankruptcy. Nonetheless, the company is reporting an increase of 2.8% in comparable store sales that, while not as high as last year’s 7.3% increase, is still welcome news in an age of struggling book retailers. The total company net income for Barnes & Noble was $52.0 million for the quarter, which was on par with last year’s numbers.

    Barnes & Noble College, their retail branch that specializes in an inventory of academic textbooks, had a decline in sales from $540 million to $525 million. The company asserts that the rise in lower-priced textbook rentas contributed to the decline of sales in new and used textboks.

    BN.com, the company’s online branch for retail, returned encouraging numbers. The sales for BN.com increased 32% over last year, up from $319 million to $420 million. The comparable sales increased 42%, a bump that follows last year’s increase of 64%.

    These numbers appear to have delighted the traders on Wall Street as Barnes & Noble bumped up nearly 4% this morning following the release of the company’s financial results for the quarter. Given that yesterday’s stock action saw the company’s shares remain relatively low (when compared to to where they were two weeks ago), the recovery following today’s financial report suggests investors have faith in Barnes & Noble’s mission to succeed in their last financial quarter for 2012. A conference call with Barnes & Noble’s senior management will be happening this morning, so given on what the bosses have to say could send the company’s shares up even more (or down, depending on if traders like what they hear).

    For the rest of the upcoming year, the company expects the consolidated sales for the full 2012 fiscal year to land somewhere between $7.0 billion and $7.2 billion as they anticipate a sustainable growth in sales from BN.com

    Barnes & Noble credits the success of their online retail site to the continued popularity and growth of their e-reader tablet, Nook. The e-reader has been garnering enough sales of digital content that it’s been able to offset the decline in the sales of actual books (and other stuff you might buy through BN.com) through the bookseller’s site. From a statement accompanying the release of the Q3 results, Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said:

    “In the third quarter, our traffic and sales in stores were the highest we’ve seen in five years,” said William Lynch, chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble. “Our physical book sales at our stores increased more than 4% over last year, and our merchandising changes in our juvenile business and our Toys & Games department experienced double-digit revenue growth in the third quarter. Importantly, our NOOK digital content business continues to grow rapidly, and according to some of the largest U.S. publishers, we maintained or slightly gained share in the eBook market during the third quarter. We’re excited about the launch of the NOOK Tablet with 8GB, an incredible value at only $199, and we look forward to welcoming millions of customers into our stores to try our entire award-winning line of NOOK products.”

    And speaking of Nook, Barnes & Noble is looking to continue pressing the Nook’s success with the announcement of a new 8GB model today that will be sold at $199. Information regarding the new Nook was scarce in the press release but it does promise to be “the company’s fastest and lightest tablet.” On the heels of a new 8GB Nook, the price of the Nook Color will be reduced to $169.

  • Google Wallet Restores Prepaid Card Use After Issuing Fixes

    Google Wallet Restores Prepaid Card Use After Issuing Fixes

    After temporarily disabling the provisioning of prepaid cards, the Google Wallet team has reinstated the use prepaid cards after issuing a few security fixes. In an update to the blog post that originally announced Google’s decision to flip the off switch on prepaid cards, Vice President of Google Wallet and Payments, Osama Bedier, explained:

    Yesterday afternoon, we restored the ability to issue new prepaid cards to the Wallet. In addition, we issued a fix that prevents an existing prepaid card from being re-provisioned to another user. While we’re not aware of any abuse of prepaid cards or the Wallet PIN resulting from these recent reports, we took this step as a precaution to ensure the security of our Wallet customers. If you are unable to access your previous prepaid card balance for any reason, please contact our toll-free support for assistance.

    Google Wallet has certainly had it’s share of hurdles to clear recently, what with a gang of researchers successfully hacking the app and then the security issues that were addressed last week. As they mentioned in the original post, mobile payments will likely be the way of the future so this could be a valuable service once the wrinkles are all ironed out. Well, it’ll be useful until we all get those frontal lobe implants that laser credit card numbers at cash registers and check-out screens in order to process our transactions.

  • Apple Shares Crossed The $500 Milestone Today

    When it comes to money, Apple is the pinball wizard who never misses the replay. Every few days in 2012 (and every day every year, really, but 2012 especially), it seems like the company keeps getting richer and richer. Today would be one of those days as Apple shares exceeded the $500 mark for the first time.

    Apple shares were inching toward this milestone last week when they topped out around $496 on Thursday, thereby making Apple worth more than the combined value of Microsoft and Google. When the market opened this morning, Apple shares jumped up from $493.42 to $503.73. Shares have since staggered back down below $500 throughout the day although as of writing this they currently hang just above $501.

    Shares of Apple have been surging in the past month. A month ago on January 13, shares reached a value of $419.86. That a mere month has passed yet shares have appreciated as much as they have is really staggering. Makes you wonder what these stock broker-trader-Wall Street-exchanger-speculator-rich people think is coming down the Apple pipes later this year.

    If you go check out the Google Financial page of Apple’s movement on the stock market, you can literally watch the tech company getting richer. Depending on what kind of person you are, watching that page is a great mechanism for either the happiest or most depressing drinking game ever.

  • Apple Is Worth More Than Google And Microsoft COMBINED

    All those rumors swirling around the possibility of an iPad 3 release next month seem to be doing good things for Apple’s stock market activity because the company’s shares reached yet another all-time high this afternoon. Earlier today, shares of Apple peaked at $496.75 and as of writing this continue to hover around the $493 mark.

    While it’s hardly surprising anymore to hear about how much money Apple has (hint: it’s more than the GDP of most countries), one fact puts it into perspective: Apple’s worth more than Google and Microsoft combined.

    I am an ignoramus when it comes to the stock market, but I can at least add this much.

    Apple’s market capitalization: $459.66 billion.
    Google’s market capitalization: $199.03 billion.
    Microsoft’s market capitalization: $256.10 billion.

    $199.03B + $256.10B < $459.66B

    Granted, Apple is “only” worth $4.53 billion more than the combined financial worth of Google and Microsoft, but that’s still enough money for them to get into the interplanetary real estate market. But let’s arbitrarily compare Apple’s value to lots of other things that are worth a lot of money:

    Budget of NASA: $17.8 million
    GDP of Romania: $161.62 billion
    GDP of South Africa: $275.5 billion
    Total military budget of U.S.: $683.7 billion

    Actually, that’s all of the expensive stuff I can think of. At any rate, you get the picture. Apple is ridiculously wealthy.

  • Groupon Posts Q4 Net Loss Of $37M

    Groupon released their Q4 2011 report today, revealing a year-to-year 194% increase in revenue from $172.2 million in 2010 to $506.5 million this year. However, the online purveyors of collectively bargained daily deals had a net loss of $37 million in the 2011 fourth quarter – also it’s first quarterly results since becoming a public company this past November.

    The company also stated it had a net less of $275 million for 2011, compared to $413 million last year.

    One explanation for the financial results of Groupon’s 2011 is its effort to expand into other areas of commercse as well as other regions of the world. These efforts were evinced with their sales, which increased %500 to $1.6 billion.

    The financial impact of the report sent Groupon shares up as high as $25.70 earlier today before falling back down to $24.58 by the end of the day. Still, despite the tumble after initially rising, shares are still up $0.39 for the day.

    The full statement of Groupon’s 2010 fiscal earnings as well as their first quarterly results can be accessed on their website.