Looks like its a slugfest between homegrown Micromax and Korean giant Samsung to capture the booming tablet market in India. Edging out Micromax, the Korean electronics major has become number one brand in terms of tablet sales in the third quarter of 2012, according to a new report.
In the second quarter, with 18.4 % market share, Micromax had beaten Samsung and Apple in terms of unit sales of tablet devices in India.
During the three months ended 31 September 2012, twice the number of tablets sold in the previous quarter were sold. Overall sales were at 1.1 million units in the quarter.
Samsung led the sale with a 23.9% share, followed by Micromax 15.3% and Datawind at third position with a 12.3% share, according to a report by Cyber Media.
The report points out 99.3% quarter on quarter growth in tablet sales. Sales grew a whopping 1026.5% year on year. It is estimated that Indians have bought 3 million units in 2012.
Close to 135 vendors have launched their tablets till 3Q 2012. The average cost of a tablet sold in India is around Rs 13,200 while majority of sales were done by tablets which were cheaper than Rs 10,000.
The tablet market is expected to increase by at least 100% in 2013 (double the number of units sold in 2012). The key drivers for this will be large number of launches by OEMs eyeing the India consumer market for mobile computing and data communication products, as well as the demand expected to be generated via enterprise adoption of tablets, said the report.
Outlook of Tablet market in 2013
- Windows 8 based Media Tablets will be the main highlight in the market.
- Enterprises will see increasing adoption of tablet PCs as part of the larger trend towards mobility.
- Few OEMs are expected to announce LTE / LTE-ready tablets for the India market in 2013. Though we haven’t seen many Tablets announced yet supporting LTE worldwide.
- There could be some cleansing in the market for sub-INR 5,000 Tablets. 2013 is likely to see some of the players in this segment closing shop due to lack of market acceptability.
- 2013 will see markets crystallise around three price points for the India Tablet PC market. These will be INR 5,000-10,000; INR 15,000-20,000 and over INR 35,000.
While mobile phone sales worldwide including India slowed down during second quarter of 2012 , Indian tablet Market sales touched 0.55 million units in the second quarter of 2012, up 59% quarter on quarter and 673% year on year. Tablets are growing on a much smaller base compared to mobile phones so its no surprise that it beats mobile growth.
