After a runaway success in the handset business over the last 24 months, many small players, led by domestic upstarts, who jointly account for over 40% of cellphone sales, are now set to enter the nascent tablet PC market in India.
Companies such as Lava, Micromax, Zen, Olive, G’Five, Acer and Fly among others will attempt to replicate their success in the tablet PC space by offering products at large discounts compared to an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy Tab, targeting the mid-income group.
While Apple, which launched the iPad last week in India, and its primary competitor Samsung are largely restricted to metros and some big cities, the smaller handset players say they plan to ride their strong distribution network and high retailers’ commission, especially in rural India, to capture a large share of the tablet pie.
Executives with these companies say their products will be a match for the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab as they will all use Google’s Android operating system. Analysts predict that Android tablets are set to get a boost this year as Google is set to release is Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb, a version of the smartphone operating system designed for tablets.
UK-based research firm Strategy Analytics in a report earlier this month said that Android-based tablets had captured a 22% share of the world’s tablet market last quarter, reducing Apple’s dominance to 75% of all fourth quarter sales when compared to 95% share in the third quarter, when its iPad accounted for 4.2 million of the 4.4 million tablets sold.
G’Five, ranked second in the country in terms of cellphone market share by research firm IDC, has already started field-testing its tablet in India. To be launched in the first week of April, the tablet will come in three models — two on Android and one on Windows — in seven and ten inch screen sizes. Arshit Pathak, managing director Kingtech Electronics India, a group company of G’Five International said the company would price the tablets at around Rs 10,000.
Delhi-based Lava Mobiles will introduce its tablet by September this year that will be priced between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 and will also run on the Android platform. The company’s co-founder and director SN Rai said the company has made substantial investment in expanding its research and design expertise, and expects prices of tablets to come down further.
Another Delhi-based handset maker Zen Mobile will launch an Android-based tablet by April. The company’s managing director Deepesh Gupta said the 10-inch screen tablet would be priced between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000, lower than tablets already in the market. “The tablet will be endorsed by our brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan,” he added.
Olive Telecom, which last year was the first Indian company to unveil a tablet, said it sold out its initial stock of the device termed the OlivePad. According to Olive chairman, Arun Khanna, the company will launch a new OlivePad with an upgraded operating system and possibly a lighter version this year, priced at around Rs 23,000.
Newer handset makers coming up with fully-loaded tablets are targeting the mid and low income earning segment, most of who will be first time buyers and who may choose tablets over laptops and netbooks.
While the country sells over 12 million mobile handsets a month, the tablet PC market is estimated to be as low as 10,000 units a month. But, with all leading mobile service providers launching 3G services enabling faster data services, the tablet market is expected to grow exponentially this year.
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