The holiday season wasn't a very merry one for Barnes & Noble. The company's retail sales fell 10.9% this holiday period compared to the same period in 2011 and sales for B&N's Nook segment were down 12.6%.
The Nook unit, which includes the e-reader devices plus digital content and accessories, posted sales of $311 million for the nine-week holiday period ending Dec. 29. While digital content sales rose 13.1% during the period, unit sales for Nook were down. (The company didn't offer any specifics on how many fewer Nook units it sold this holiday season.)
B&N had warned analysts last week that overall holiday sales would be below expectations and that Nook sales wouldn't match the company's prior projections. That announcement came as Pearson announced a
The disappointing Nook figures come as rival Amazon claimed strong holiday sales for its Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire, Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle tablets, which held the top four spots on the Amazon worldwide best seller charts during the period. Amazon did not disclose sales figures for the devices.