Nook: Barnes & Noble will hand off tablet manufacturing to a third party
If you buy a Nook tablet in the future, another company name may be appearing alongside the Barnes & Noble logo on your device.
Following disappointing fourth-quarter numbers, Barnes & Noble is making yet another change and is looking to partner with another manufacturer to create its Nook tablets.
Barnes & Noble announced today that the company itself would no longer produce Nook tablet devices. It also announced that the net loss for the company, $118.6 million, was more than double the net loss for the same quarter in 2012, which came to $56.9 million. B&N in part blamed the numbers on 鈥淣ook inventory charges,鈥� according to independent bookstore newsletter .
So Barnes & Noble will be working with another company to release the tablets, and you鈥檒l still be able to find them in stores. Barnes & Noble will continue to produce the black-and-white e-readers such as the Nook Simple Touch.
鈥淲e are a hundred percent not exiting the device business,鈥� Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said during a conference call, according to .听
According to the company鈥檚 newest numbers, sales for Nook devices fell 34 percent during the quarter.
Barnes & Noble called the as-yet-unannounced Nook tablet partner 鈥渢hird party manufacturers of consumer electronics products.鈥澛燱ill it be Microsoft? Rumors that the company was looking to buy Nook Media were quashed in May, but the company did recently invest $300 million in the Nook and college bookstore division of the company.听
B&N鈥檚 sales of digital content dropped almost 9 percent during the quarter. In a B&N blamed the drop on 鈥渢he device sales shortfall as well as the comparison to the The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies a year ago.鈥澛�
