Norwegian company reMarkable is going through serious turbulence. The company just announced the layoff of 200 of its 500 employees, roughly 40% of its workforce. Here’s a look at the factors behind this difficult trajectory.
A second round of layoffs in less than two years
Based in Oslo, Norway, reMarkable built its name designing premium e-ink tablets aimed at replacing paper for note-taking.
The company had already gone through a first round of layoffs the previous year, cutting its headcount from 580 to 500. That first round clearly wasn’t enough to restore balance, as a new, far more significant wave of cuts has now been announced.
According to a statement released in Norway, management attributes the decision to slowing demand for its products. A partially plausible explanation: e-ink tablets are niche products, with a naturally long replacement cycle since users tend to hold onto their devices for several years.
A cost structure that’s hard to sustain
With 500 employees and an average gross monthly salary of roughly $6,000 in Norway, reMarkable’s payroll amounted to approximately $3 million per month, or over $36 million per year.
And that’s before factoring in manufacturing, logistics, and marketing costs required to sell reMarkable’s devices.
For a company whose catalog is limited to three products, that’s a particularly heavy cost structure.
As a point of comparison, Paperslate, a French competitor in the digital tablet space, reportedly operates with fewer than fifteen employees, yet delivers a steady pace of software updates.
Software falling behind
This is precisely where reMarkable appears to be most behind.
The last significant firmware update for its tablets was released in December 2024. That’s nearly 18 months without any major new features for users.
A hard pace to justify given the human resources involved, and all the more noticeable when smaller competitors manage to ship multiple updates per quarter.
A new product that didn’t revive sales
In September 2025, reMarkable launched the Paper Pro Move, a new model intended to boost sales. The expected effect doesn’t seem to have materialized.
The product suffers in comparison to alternatives now well established in the market, such as the Bigme B7 Color, offered at a significantly lower price with comparable features.
Competition: the main culprit?
reMarkable also points to rising costs for electronic components to explain its difficulties.
That argument deserves some nuance: Amazon recently launched a new version of its Kindle Scribe in the US at a price noticeably lower than reMarkable’s tablets, with comparable specs.
While Amazon’s production volumes are incomparable to reMarkable’s, the price gap is hard to explain solely by component costs (even if those have indeed risen sharply in recent months).
In my view, it’s really competitive pressure in this market that seems to be the most decisive factor in the company’s current difficulties.
reMarkable’s business model, which relies on both premium hardware sales and a monthly subscription of around $5, clearly isn’t generating enough profitability to support a 500-person company.
What’s next for reMarkable?
The company still has enough financial resources to get through this restructuring period. But the road ahead is long and full of challenges: it needs to rethink its product strategy, accelerate software development, and adapt its business model to an increasingly competitive market.
reMarkable remains a leading Western player in a sector where few non-Asian companies have managed to establish a lasting presence.
Its ability to reinvent itself will determine whether this restructuring is just a painful step forward – or the beginning of a deeper decline.
Sources : https://e24.no/naeringsliv/i/ExboXl/remarkable-kutter-opptil-200-ansatte – https://eures.europa.eu/living-and-working/labour-market-information/labour-market-information-norway_fr – https://remarkable.com/
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