B&N: Nook Captures a Quarter of U.S. eBook Market

Posted 02/23/2011 at 10:31am | by Paul Lilly

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Barnes and Noble this week reported its fiscal 2011 third quarter financial results, which as you might imagine is filled with numbers, but one stands out more than the rest. According to B&N, the Nook platform now accounts for a quarter of the eBook market in the U.S. Does it really? We're not sure.

According to CNet, B&N CEO William Lynch had this to say about Nook's marketshare:

"We intend for Barnes & Noble to be a leader in the exploding market for digital content. We now represent 25 percent of the eBook market in the U.S., larger than our share in physical books. We sell twice as many eBooks as all formats of physical books combined on BN.com."

That 25 percent claim isn't present on the press release currently posted on B&N's website, so either the company edited it out, or CNet is quoting an updated statement that has yet to hit the news wire. Either way, it's fair to say the Nook is a success, and the comment about selling twice as many digital books as physical ones is in the current press release. B&N also said it increased sales by 7 percent from the same period one year ago, raking in $2.3 billion for the quarter.