NOOKcolor coming to Walmart?
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B&N is bringing its e-reader to Walmart. NOOKcolor, which has a 7 inch color screen, is B&N’s latest effort to turn the tables on Amazon and steal more customers. B&N still plans to sell its e-ink e-reader. Bringing NOOK to Walmart ahead of the holiday shopping season is only smart:
Sales of Nook devices continue to exceed our expectations, and we are thrilled to be able to partner with Walmart, one of the world’s greatest retailers, to expand the distribution of our award-winning Nook eBook Reader
NOOK will be available in 2500+ Walmart stores and online. At this point, it is not clear when NOOKcolor is coming to Walmart, but that is most definitely on the cards (perhaps some time after November 19th). B&N NOOK is going to need all the push it can get this year. Amazon has already set the bar very high for its competitors by dropping its e-readers’ prices and introducing more powerful ones to the market. While NOOK and NOOKcolor won’t dethrone Kindle, they are more than capable of stealing customers from Amazon.
B&N does seem to have lost its way with its new Android tablet. The device itself seems fine for what it promises to deliver. The problem is NOOKcolor will struggle to make any impact in the crowded tablet market that is being dominated by Apple iPad. B&N may have differentiated NOOK from Kindle and other e-ink readers but to what cost? Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
