Barnes & Noble warns of worse-than-expected losses for Nook division

Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader business is poised to post an even worse loss this year than it forecasted in January, reports Reuters. The company says that before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, the loss for the year ending April 27th will be higher than the $262 million hit it took in fiscal 2012. Barnes & Noble’s Nook hardware sales have been sliding as part of a broader softening of the dedicated e-reader market, and while its e-book sales have continued to grow, they haven’t been able to offset the damage. Not helping matters, holiday sales of its Nook HD and HD+ tablet devices also fell short of expectations, beset by a slow initial rollout and increasing competition from the likes of Amazon and Apple. Barnes & Noble hasn’t released any estimates for the size of its year-end loss, but we’ll get a better sense of how bad the damage is when it publishes its Q3 financial results on February 28th.