Barnes & Noble’s consolidated revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2015 were $1.2 billion, a 7 percent drop compared to the same quarter last year. First quarter consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased to $30 million, up from a loss of $9 million last year.
The Retail segment, which includes sales from bookstores and BN.com, recorded revenues of $955 million during the quarter, representing a 5.3 percent drop from last year. NOOK only lost $5 million during the quarter, as opposed to the $50 million the company lost during the same quarter last year. This is attributed to Nook expenses, which declined $27 million during Q1 2015 as compared to Q1 2014, while Nook’s gross profit increased $13 million.
“Retail Core comparable sales continued to benefit from improving physical book industry trends, merchandising initiatives and store promotions, such as our Get Pop-Cultured campaign, which was able to create excitement and incremental traffic and sales into our stores,” stated Michael P. Huseby, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. “College continued to acquire new school contracts and increased both functionality and title count for Yuzu, our digital education platform. NOOK continued to reduce losses and launched its first co-branded tablet in partnership with Samsung, our first new tablet in almost two years.”