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B&N Pushes Back International Expansion Plans by Four Months

barnes noble logoPublisher’s Lunch has turned up a new SEC filing that reveals that B&N’s international expansion plans have hit a snag.

According to the filing, the retailer is now saying that they will launch Nook Stores in more countries by the end of fiscal year 2014 (April 2014). This presents a delay from B&N’s previously reported schedule, which was to open those Nook Stores by the end of fiscal year 2014.

No, you didn’t read that wrong; this detail had already been reported almost a month ago.

It merely confirms what B&N said in their press release when they released the most recent quarterly report (in August).

Update: It looks like I goofed; this is new news. I could have sworn that the delay to the end of FY 2014 had already been mentioned previously, but now I cannot find it.

Yes, it does represent the second time that B&N has delayed their expansion plans (which were supposed to have been completed by June 2013 and then December 2013) but it is still old news.

Just about the only thing that is new today is that this could cost B&N money:

This delay may entitle Microsoft to defer a portion of advance payments until the target expansion requirement is met.

The new Nook Stores are being launched in partnership with / under contract to Microsoft as part of the Nook Media investment deal. Microsoft had agreed to pay Nook Media $25 million a year for five years for help in "acquiring local digital reading content and technology development." The MS investment is probably also the reason that Nook Media has put more effort into developing the Nook Windows 8 app instead of updating the outdated Nook apps for OSX and Windows.

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Comments


Paul September 9, 2013 um 1:13 pm

Their ebooks don’t seem price competitive at the moment either. I looked for an ebook on the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo and both Kobo and Kindle were $3 cheaper than the Nook store. (and $10 cheaper than the paperback).

Hence I bought it through Kobo and my local bookstore.


PL September 9, 2013 um 2:10 pm

Where was this "old news" reported, Nate? Note in the DR story you linked to. And not in the BN 8/20 press release you seem to think it was disclosed in:

Their 10-K filed at the end of July was the announced delayed to "the end of 2013."
http://archive.fast-edgar.com/20130729/Aabt5zn4W7a-kin-4jD-a0-pQ3-r-q-h/#tx530381_3

And the new SEC filing, as we noted, was the first public declaration of a second delay.

Nate Hoffelder September 9, 2013 um 2:13 pm

Thank you for the correction.

Edit: I thought I read it somewhere, but obviously I must be misremembering. I have edited the post.


B&N Launches New Nook Windows 8 App – Now Available in 32 Countries – The Digital Reader November 25, 2013 um 12:02 pm

[…] of their partner. At last report B&N planned to expand the Nook Store into 10 countries by the end of the year. I think they met that […]


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