According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker data for CY 2012, the overall Tablet market in India has reached approximately 2.66 million units, a whopping 901% Y-o-Y growth from CY 2011. The Tablet market exploded from a fledgling niche category into a thriving and intensely competitive market within a span of 12 months, with cheaper and smaller screen-size form factors leading the charge since 2nd half of 2012.
“The unprecedented growth was fueled by close to 6-8 local and top international vendors namely Samsung and Apple ramping up shipments and aggressively launching new models especially in the 7-inch device space to meet the growing consumer demand in the low-cost Tablet market in India”, said Manasi Yadav, Senior Market Analyst in the Client Devices team at IDC India.
The low cost 7 inch tablets made up for close to 78% in the total volume shipments for Q4 2012, the growing contribution of local vendors and the increasing Chinese imports in the Indian market can be attributed as the primary reasons for this trend.
Android was seen as the dominant OS choice in the market, owing to the Chinese imports and local vendors who together comprise close to about 70% of the total Tablet market in India. Chinese unbranded/Whitebox market took up a sizeable chunk of the tablet market too. Most of these vendors operate on a “fly by night” model, wherein they flood the market with low cost tablets and vanish within 2-3 quarters.
