Barnes & Noble Has Sold 1 Million Nook Tablets, Challenging Apple and Amazon

That was the good news.

The reality check is that Amazon has sold 2 million Kindles. Apple? They've sold 13 million iPads. The focus should be on the growth of the category. It is worth remembering that the auto industry sells both Mercedes and Subarus. In beer, there is room for Heineken and Keystone Lite. In mobile phones, housing, widescreen TVs and a host of other markets there are numerous entrants and price points.

For entertainment, the fact that consumers have warmed to a new technology that is a lot more expensive than a Starbucks coffee during a time of economic strain suggests that the definition of affordable luxury is beginning to expand. Each of the three - now major - players in the tablet market offers something slightly different, but it is evident that convergence is coming. Yesterday's story about Microsoft challenging Apple in the app store space is another piece of that puzzle. As developers begin to figure out how to meet the multiple market opportunities, demand for these products will expand to match their capabilities.

In the meantime, building market share by selling a million ereaders while combating the decline of the book and magazine remind one of a couple of other transformational tech stories: Nokia and Sony. JL

Carl Franzen reports in TPM:

The holidays have come early for struggling book retailer Barnes & Noble. The company has shipped 1 million copies of its new $249 Nook Tablet in the first month of its release, according to an unverified report from DigiTimes. That’s up from an anticipated 800,000 Nook Tablets, according to the blog.

The company teased as much during its second quarter earnings announcement on December 1, reporting that the Nook Tablet was its “fastest-selling Nook product” yet and that the entire Nook line raked in $220 million in the quarter,
though that wasn’t enough to stop the company from posting an overall loss of $6.6 million.

Barnes & Noble also remained coy with explicit shipment figures for the Nook Tablet during the announcement.

While the Nook Tablet’s success is a drop in the tablet compared to the 13.8 million iPads that analysts estimated will be sold in the first quarter of 2012, it’s far more than the 1.8 million tablets computer maker Asus plans to ship for the entirety of 2011, as TechCrunch’s Matt Burns points out.

The real question, though, is whether Barnes & Noble has any shot at catching up with its closest, but cheaper, competitor, Amazon.

The online retail giant is estimated to have sold up to 2 million Kindle Fires at $199 a piece since that tablet was introduced in late September and may sell up to 5 million before the year is over, easily becoming the single most popular Android tablet in the U.S. Both the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire run severely-forked versions of Android that peddle each of the respective retailer’s online stores and wares.

But Barnes & Noble also just announced on Tuesday that it inked a deal with Amazon competitor Overstock.com to sell Barnes & Noble ebooks alongside Overstock’s online hardcover book sales. Overstock customers also now have access to a discounted, refurbished $149 Nook Color (normally $199).

Meanwhile, antitrust regulators in the European Union and U.S. are reportedly investigating the entire ebook industry for price-fixing and other anticompetitive practices, though at least in the EU, the investigation seems to be focused on Apple, which might be something of a win for Barnes & Noble and Amazon — at least for now.