Indian Best Tablets : Quick Review :
You Must Know
When Mahendra Kumar Jain first thought of manufacturing a touch
screen device four years ago, the word 'tablet' had only one meaning -
it was something the doctor prescribed. He wanted to be in the
infotainment device segment, and the touch screen seemed just the right
device to make. However, by the time he unveiled his device in
mid-August this year, an enormous change had occurred: the tablet had
become the gadget of desire for the well-heeled. So much that in the
April to June quarter Apple's iPad grew at 183 per cent year on year,
while the global PC industry grew 2.6 per cent in volumes.
Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the period. India, the last of
the major global markets to get the iPad, already has six to seven
tablets on offer, including Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Research In
Motion's PlayBook, apart from the iPad. Yet, Jain, Managing Director of
Bangalorebased Laxmi Access Communications Systems, or LACS, fancies his
chances of making a dent.
His cheapest tablet costs Rs 4,500, with the price rising up to Rs 36,000 for more costly versions.
The iPad costs Rs 28,000, the Galaxy Tab Rs 26,000 and the PlayBook
Rs 27,000. LACS, which was so far into information technology
distribution and manufacture of coated paper, is not the first Indian
company to try and crack open this market by offering tablets cheap.
Reliance Communication has come out with its own at Rs 12,000 and
Beetel, a Bharti company, has launched one for Rs 9,999. Around six
months back, HCL Infosystems also came out with a range of India-made
tablets, priced at Rs 12,000 onwards.
Will tablets follow the mobile handset pattern? Long dominated by
multinationals like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, and later raided by
RIM's BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone, and various HTC models, this market
was turned on its head by a clutch of Indian manufacturers who based
their operations in countries like China and Taiwan, and pulled off a
coup.
As the market share of the Indian manufacturers, led by Micromax,
Lava and Spice, climbed from zero in 2008 to more than 20 per cent in
2010, market leader Nokia lost ground, with its share falling from 46
per cent to 35 per cent in the same period.
What gave Indian companies the edge was a rich list of features and
long battery life for their products, and low prices. Should we brace
for an encore in tablets? "The tablet market is clearly going the mobile
handset way," says Naveen Mishra, lead telecom analyst at Cyber Media
Research. He believes the market adoption of Indian tablets will speed
up once Broadband Wireless Access takes off. Tablets are all about use
of data on the move.
The tablet market is at 100,000 pieces a year and expected to grow at
35 per cent, say current estimates. "Beetel is trying to break the
affordability barrier," says Vinod Sawhny, Executive Director and Chief
Executive Officer, Beetel Teletech. Jain of LACS is trying to do exactly
the same, and more forcefully. He believes that many people in India
aspire to owning a tablet - make it more affordable and they will come
in droves. "At Rs 6,000-7,000, our products will have a much larger
multiplier effect," says Jain. More so because he has tied up with
finance companies, so customers can buy his tablet on a 12-month
instalment scheme.
Sawhny and Jain both believe that there is a large untapped market in
the rural and semiurban space. The lowering of the entry price,
therefore, would be critical, as will be the world of applications that
these companies can open up to the user.
They had better hurry, because Micromax and Lava are getting ready to launch their tablets, too.
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