Barnes & Noble Q2 Earnings Reveal Nook Tablet As Its Fastest Selling Device

Barnes & Noble issued its fiscal Q2 2012 earnings report today, revealing its Nook line of products to be a $220 million business, while its latest Nook Tablet has become the company's fastest selling device to date. However, even with the success of its Nook sales, the company overall faced a net loss of $6.6 million this past quarter.

The Nook Tablet launched on November 7 with a price tag of $249 and quickly became the fastest selling Nook product for Barnes & Noble. At the same time, the company dropped the price of its Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch e-readers to $199 and $99, respectively. Altogether, these changes in the last quarter increased Nook sales by 85 percent.

Sales of physical books had dropped, but Barnes & Noble says it was offset by the strong Nook sales as well as the liquidation of Borders stores. The company's online sales increased by 17 percent from the same quarter last year and was further boosted another 10.7 percent thanks to the three-day holiday weekend. But the company still missed Wall Street expectations, reporting a $6.6 million net loss, although a slight improvement over the $12.6 million net loss from the year before.