Barnes & Noble halts Nook tablet production after struggling to keep up with Apple, Google and Amazon
After launching the device in 2009, Barnes & Noble has announced it will cease production of its Nook tablets after a 34 per cent drop in sales of Nook devices and e-books.
In the year to 27 April 2013, losses amounted to $475m in the Nook division.
"We want to move away from taking on all that risk ourselves,” said Barnes & Noble chief executive William Lynch. “It was very capital intensive to build our own tablets.”
As such, its black-and-white Nook e-readers, including the Nook Simple Touch, will continue to be produced but would now be co-branded and produced in partnership with a third party manufacturer.
"We plan to continue to innovate in the single purpose black-and-white e-reader category, and the underpinning of our strategy remains the same today as it has since we first entered the digital market, which is to offer customers any digital book, magazine or newspaper, on any device," said Lynch.
There are also reports surfacing that Barnes & Noble plans to close as many as 20 stores of its 625 retail stores this year.
Upon the news, Shares in Barnes & Noble fell 17 per cent.