It will continue to design devices in the, 'single purpose black-and-white eReader category.'Ĭompetition from Apple and Amazon likely posed problems for B&N's tablet aspirations. While Nook sales dropped, Barnes & Noble's digital content sales rose 16.2 percent for the year, so now the company will focus on that part of the market. Nook losses hit $177 million during the company's fourth quarter, and $475 million for the year. Nook tablet revenue was down 34 percent year-over-year from US$168 million to $108 million. The company decided it was time to bail on the tablet business after losing money in a big way. Instead of killing the Nook tablet business outright, however, B&N is working to find third-party manufacturers to build co-branded Nook tablet devices.īarnes & Noble's Nook isn't dead yet, but it's getting close Book retailer Barnes & Noble revealed on Tuesday that it is abandoning the Nook tablet hardware business to focus on the company's line of dedicated ereaders.