Lower Nook Tablet Prices To Take On Kindle Fire’s Success
With 16GB of memory and higher resolution screen, the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet appeared to be a worthy competitor to Amazon’s Kindle Fire but it hasn’t taken off with users as the company had hoped. The most likely cause is was its $249 price point, versus Kindle Fire’s $199 entry price.
Barnes & Noble announced today that it would sell lower-priced Nook Tablet device with 8GB of memory for $199, the same price and memory size as the Kindle Fire. In addition, the price of the Nook Color is being dropped to $169 from $199.
Revenue from Nook e-readers and its digital catalog rose 38 percent to $542 million. That includes the actual selling prices for e-books, rather than the commission received on selling them, as well as all deferred e-reader device revenue, AP reports.
Barnes & Noble estimates it has a 27 to 30 percent share of the e-book market in the United States and has been investing heavily in the e-reader market. Its digital catalog sales rose 38 percent last year t to $542 million. That includes the actual selling prices for e-books, rather than the commission received on selling them, as well as all deferred e-reader device revenue.
In-store revenue grew as well by 2.8 percent.“In the third quarter, our traffic and sales in stores were the highest we’ve seen in five years,” Barnes & Noble’s chief executive, William Lynch, said in a call with investors.
“Our juvenile business and our toys and games department both drove significant double-digit increases, due in large part to the execution of our new merchandising strategies.”
Buoying physical sales was the closing of a primary rival, Borders that liquidated its inventory last year. The company is in the midst of transforming itself from a brick-and-mortar bookseller model to one supported by hardware and digital sales.
The big question on investor and consumer minds is if the company can survive in the long-term with incredibly strong competition from Amazon on all fronts.
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