Bookstore giant Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) wants to make their popular budget-friendly Nook Tablet computer even better! They’re going to launch a video-streaming service later this fall, in hopes to keep up with its top competitor, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and their Kindle Fire tablets.
The company made the official announcement on Tuesday, stating that their Nook video service would let users purchase movies and television show episodes from big entertainment companies like HBO, Viacom Inc, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Walt Disney Studios, right from their tablet. More partnerships with entertainment companies will be announced soon.
Their top competitor, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), already features a video service called Prime Instant Video. Subscribers to Amazon Prime (which is about $79.00 for a full year of customer benefits, including free two-day shipping and select e-book rentals for free) have access to hundreds of movies and tv shows. In early September, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) partnered up with Epix to add thousands of new movies to their streaming library.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS)’s latest attempt to keep up with the competition is a good move but will it end up hurting their profits in the long run?
James McQuivey, analyst for Forrester Research, explained “Unfortunately for Barnes & Noble – a bookstore, they’re going to eventually have to sell everything in order to make their devices competitive.”
The good news is that McQuivey still thinks the Nook is an overall better tablet than the Kindle in some ways. The Nook has about 30 percent of the e-book market in the United States.
Although we don’t have an exact launch date for the new Nook Video feature, I think it’s safe to say that it will probably arrive in either late October, or early November, sometime before the holiday shopping season. I predict that this will boost Nook sales and create even more competition for Amazon.
