American bookstore chain, Barnes & Noble,
Inc.(NYSE:BKS), on Sunday reduced the prices of its Nook devices, slashing the
retail price of the Nook 16 GB tablet to $199 from $249.
The price of the 8 GB tablet has also been reduced by
$20 to $179, while the Nook Color will now be available at $149, the company
said.
The reduction in prices come just ahead of the peak
school shopping season and also amidst talks that online retailer Amazon was
readying to launch a new version of its popular Kindle Fire tablets.
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The breakaway popularity of Google's Nexus 7 may also
have had something to do with the steep price cuts. The price reductions bring
the Nook e-readers on par with that of the Kindle Fire and the Nexus.
Amazon is the undoubted market leader in the e-book
reader segment with its Kindle devices having a 60 percent market share, but
Barnes & Noble's Nook devices are not far behind with a 27 percent share of
the American market for e-books.
Being the smaller competitor Barnes has had to keep up
with its larger rival by cutting prices and that has had an impact on its
earnings margins.
The 7-inch Nook tablet was launched in November 2011
and has seen frequent price reductions.
Shares in Barnes & Noble, worth $833 million were
down 1.2 percent at $14.14 on the NYSE.
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