Nook Out Below: Barnes & Noble Drops Tablet Prices as Mini-Market Gets More Crowded
With Amazon expected to refresh its Kindle Fire tablet some time in the third quarter, and Apple rumored to be prepping a diminutive iPad mini, and Google’s Nexus 7 winning accolades in the market, Barnes & Noble is taking some proactive measures to keep its own Nook tablets competitive. Its first move: Slashing the prices of its Nook Color and Nook Tablet.
Beginning this week, the price of the eight gigabyte Nook Tablet drops to $179 from $199; the price of the 16GB Nook Tablet slips to $199 from $249. B&N has taken a scalpel to the Nook Color’s price as well, lowering it to $149 from $169.
The reductions make the 16GB Nook Tablet price competitive with the 8GB Kindle Fire and Nexus 7. More to the point, they allow the Nook Color and 8GB Nook Tablet to undercut both on price. A decent enough competitive strategy. And certainly B&N needs to do something to maintain its e-book business in the face of these emerging new threats. By some estimates, B&N has managed to capture 27 percent of the e-book market, second only to Amazon, which holds about 60 percent.