The Secret Is That Nook Sales Are Dead

It’s Time B&N Took the Nook Out Back and Put it out of its Misery

Nate discovered an interesting discrepancy in the math of Barnes & Noble. Go there to read.

I’ve been waiting for this latest report. It confirms what I’ve already thought. Nook sales are just dead.

There is no longer any Twitter buzz for the Nook.

There is no longer any YouTube video buzz for the Nook (although some rare vids pop when a new version of Cyanogenmod for the color Nooks is released).

There is no longer any rooting buzz for the Nook (even Cyanogenmod).

Earlier this year, there was plenty of buzz. It has all since withered and died.

What accounts for this?

1) A rotten economy. Slice it any way you will, but an eBook device is a luxury item these days. People would rather use the public library. (See what fifty dollars really means.)

2) There’s no reason to buy any color Nook device. The Nexus 7 lacks card storage, but it’s just a better buy. And can run the Kindle app.

3) The popularity of eInk is drying up. This will likely be confirmed soon, with Amazon offering at most just two models of the eInk Kindle. And I’d be surprised if Kobo announced any new eInk device this year.

4) Rumors of the iPad Mini. People can do the math. An eInk Nook is a good percentage of the rumored iPad Mini price — close to 50%, if you’re looking at a Nook with GlowLight. Anyone not tied to B&N will just use the Kindle app too.

5) That math discrepancy Nate discovered? Given the number of Nook units B&N fobs off on eBay, could that difference account for returns? If so, Nook sales are even deader than dead. They’re a liability.

Update, August 21, 2012:

At this post, Why the Nook is failing: One chart, four reasons, Marcello Vena in Comments applies the necessary math to the B&N figures and his analysis is devastating.

Now if you says that App and digital newstand sales were higher that ebook… They must at least be highter than $100 mln.

So adding up all digital content we should see a minimum of over $200 mln plus all the device sales which we have not considered yet.

However, according to today’s press release, the total NOOK business including devices is however even less than $200 mln. (only $192 mln).

So it means that their ebook business must be way lower than $100 mln and therefore their market share way below the 25% of a market, we have assumed, that didn’t grow (!!). If we were to model the market growth in 2012 we would get an even lower market share.

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

So not even accounting for the hardware, B&N’s own figures point to a drop in market share for eBooks.

It’s just awful all the way around.

If Barnes & Noble wants a clue about what’s going wrong, they need to see here: Barnes & Noble: Drop Your Damn Mutant DRM!. Just how many potential customers did you idiots turn away with that dick move?