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B&N online sales soar
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January 7, 1999: 8:13 p.m. ET
Holiday sales nearly quadruple at barnesandnoble.com; 4Q on track
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Bookselling titan Barnes & Noble Inc. Thursday reported a nearly fourfold increase in holiday sales for its barnesandnoble.com Internet site, a sign that it is gaining ground in its battle with Amazon.com Inc.
For the seven-week period ending Jan. 2, barnesandnoble.com reported sales of $17.8 million, 3.8 times 1997 sales for the same period. The company said more than 320,000 customers shopped for the first time at the Web site, bringing its customer total to nearly 1.3 million.
"We are extremely pleased with our holiday sales which exceeded our expectations", said Jonathan Bulkeley, chief executive officer of barnesandnoble.com. "I'm delighted to have joined a company that, in a little more than a year and a half, has built one of the top e-commerce sites on the World Wide Web."
Nonetheless, barnesandnoble.com's holiday boost pales in comparison to rival Amazon.com 's (AMZN), which earlier this week said it added 1 million new customers between Nov. 17 and Dec. 31, and that it reported a one-day shipping peak of $6 million.
Barnes & Noble (BKS) noted that it expects to meet fourth-quarter Wall Street estimates. The company's online business has been a drag to its earnings for the last two quarters. While its traditional retail business has reported strong profits, Barnes & Noble's consolidated businesses have posted losses due to the costs of barnesandnoble.com.
Analysts expect Barnes & Noble to report a fourth-quarter profit of 98 cents a share, according to First Call.
But Barnes & Noble is looking forward to its deal with German media giant Bertelsmann AG providing a boost to its fourth-quarter results. In October, Bertelsmann agreed to pay $200 million for a 50-percent stake in barnesandnoble.com.
That deal postponed a planned initial public offering of the online unit.
Barnes & Noble reported $555 million in retail sales for the five-week period ending Jan. 2, up 8.6 percent from the year-ago period. Sales increased 8.1 percent to $2.77 billion for the 48 weeks ending Jan. 2.
The company's superstore sales rose 13.4 percent to $450 million for the five-week period and 12 percent to $2.3 billion in the 48-week span.
Barnes & Noble shares slipped 1-13/16 to close at 42-5/16 in Thursday trade. 
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