Blinkbox Books, Tesco's e-books service, will close after talks with Waterstone's broke down.
The decision to close the division came after Tesco had been in unsuccessful negotiations with Waterstone's, which operates a chain of 290 book stores, The Telegraph reports. The high-street retailer was interested in a possible takeover bid to meet the demand for digital reading services.
Tesco has already offloaded its movie-streaming service, Blinkbox Movies, to Talk Talk for a reported £25 million, and more recently, its music-streaming service, Blinkbox Music, to Australian company Guvera for £5 million.
The service will close at the end of February as another cost-cutting move by new chief executive Dave Lewis, who has already scrapped other unprofitable stores and services in a bid to save £250 million annually for the retail giant.
'Drastic Dave', as he became known while working at Unilever, has seen Tesco's share prices soar by making what he described as "very difficult" changes. These changes have included plans for closing 43 shops across the UK, closing its benefit pension scheme, and slashing central costs by 30 per cent.
Blinkbox Books had losses of £2 million as of last year, and the failure to sell is a disappointing end to the division, which was bought from digital book service Mobcast for £4.5 million in September 2012.
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