Barnes & Noble and Best Buy Announce Nook Partnership
(Press Release) New York, NY, April 12, 2010—Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller, and Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY), America's leading consumer electronics retailer, today announced an exclusive partnership to distribute Barnes & Noble's popular NOOK eBook Reader and accessories, as well as free BN eReader software through Best Buy in the United States. NOOK is expected to arrive at Best Buy beginning April 18, just in time for Mother's Day, Father's Day and graduation gift season.
Through the partnership, the award-winning NOOK eBook Reader and stylish accessories along with NOOK and Barnes & Noble eBook gift cards will be prominently featured in Best Buy's 1,070 stores nationwide and online at www.bestbuy.com. As with Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK at Best Buy will be featured at a special in-store display where customers can see, try and buy a NOOK for $259.99 with the guidance of a trained Best Buy Blue Shirt.
In its growing eReader selection, Best Buy named Barnes & Noble a preferred eBookstore solution, offering more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers for download and enjoyment within seconds. Best Buy will feature Barnes & Noble's free BN eReader on select PCs (laptops and desktops), netbooks, tablets and smartphones sold at Best Buy and supported by its Geek Squad Agents, giving customers access to shop Barnes & Noble's world's largest eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks) and enjoy their Barnes & Noble digital library anywhere they go.
"To date, we've limited NOOK distribution to Barnes & Noble retail and online stores and the customer response to our eBook Reader has exceeded our expectations. We have enormous respect for the Best Buy organization and its focus on providing technology solutions for millions of customers. We're thrilled to bring NOOK, the BN eReader and our digital content expertise to Best Buy and its loyal consumer electronics-focused audience as a perfect complement to the book-loving Barnes & Noble customer," said Kevin Frain, executive vice president of e-commerce, at Barnes & Noble.com. "Through this partnership, Best Buy customers will now have new and easy ways to access our expansive digital library on a variety of computing and mobile devices through BN eReader software and the Barnes & Noble eBookstore."
"Barnes & Noble long ago established itself as a premiere bookseller and more recently as a genuine innovator in the digital content space. Our two companies share a clear vision for creating tools that give people the content they want, when and how they want it," said Chris Homeister, senior vice president and general manager of the Home Entertainment Group at Best Buy. "We look forward to showcasing NOOK within our growing eBook Reader collection, and to helping customers discover the special appeal of this distinctive reading device and eBookstore solution."
NOOK marries innovative technology and sleek minimalist design with access to Barnes & Noble's digital store of over one million eBooks, newspapers and magazines. NOOK's color touch screen for navigation along with a best-in-class E Ink® display offers an immersive, enjoyable e-reading experience. It offers both free 3G wireless and Wi-Fi access and is the first eBook Reader to offer digital lending for a wide selection of eBooks through Barnes & Noble's breakthrough LendMe(TM) technology. In Barnes & Noble stores, all NOOK customers (regardless of where the device was purchased) can also enjoy fast and free Wi-Fi access to shop, exclusive More in Store content from leading authors, promotional offers and, coming soon, they'll be able to browse the complete contents of many eBooks or periodicals in the vast Barnes & Noble catalog.
About Best Buy Co., Inc.
With operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, China, Mexico and Turkey, Best Buy is a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services with a commitment to growth and innovation. The Best Buy family of brands and partnerships collectively generates more than $49 billion in annual revenue and includes brands such as Best Buy; Best Buy Mobile; Audiovisions; The Carphone Warehouse; Future Shop; Geek Squad, Five Star; Magnolia Audio Video; Napster; Pacific Sales; The Phone House; and Speakeasy. Approximately 180,000 employees apply their talents to help bring the benefits of these brands to life for customers through retail locations, multiple call centers and Web sites, in-home solutions, product delivery and activities in our communities. Community partnership is central to the way we do business at Best Buy. In fiscal 2010, we donated $25.2 million to improve the vitality of the communities where our employees and customers live and work. For more information about Best Buy, visit www.bby.com
About Barnes & Noble, Inc.
Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and a Fortune 500 company, operates 723 bookstores in 50 states. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, also operates 639 college bookstores serving nearly 4 million students and over 250,000 faculty members at colleges and universities across the United States. Barnes & Noble is the nation's top bookseller brand for the seventh year in a row, as determined by a combination of the brand's performance on familiarity, quality, and purchase intent; the top bookseller in quality for the second year in a row and the number two retailer in trust, according to the EquiTrend® Brand Study by Harris Interactive®. Barnes & Noble conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com (www.bn.com), one of the Web's largest e-commerce sites, which also features hundreds of thousands of titles in its eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks). Customers can buy and read eBooks on a wide range of platforms, including NOOK(TM) by Barnes & Noble, the iPhone and iPod touch, BlackBerry® and HTC HD2 smartphones, as well as most Windows® and Mac® laptops or full-sized desktop computers, with iPad coming soon.
General information on Barnes & Noble, Inc. can be obtained via the Internet by visiting the company's corporate website: www.barnesandnobleinc.com.
- Places:
- New York, NY
- United States