Dubai: Tablet PC sales are growing at double the pace than any other category and are the engine of growth for the mobility sector for the next couple of years.
Currently, tablets are predominantly being purchased by home-users mainly for entertainment, communication (mainly social media), internet surfing and gaming purposes. But demand from the corporate segment is expected to gain share this year and onwards.
Not just branded tablets but also low-cost tablets running on Android operating system are making brisk business.
Low-cost tablets are priced between Dh299-Dh999.
“We were selling almost 35,000 units per month last year but this year we are selling almost 45,000 units per month,” Vasant Menghani, Managing Director of Touchmate, told Gulf News.
Android tablets expanded their share of the market notably in 2012, and research firm IDC expects that trend to continue this year also.
The segment is going to get a boost when tablets running on quad-core processors are launched soon in the UAE.
“A predicted surge of low-cost Android tablets will give a shot in the arm to the UAE market and boost shipments by more than 50 per cent this year. The overall UAE market will see shipments rise to 887,537 units compared to 590,771 units in 2012, fuelled by increasing interest in the educational sector,” Fouad Charakla, research manager at IDC, told Gulf News.
Android’s gains come at the expense of Apple’s iOS, which is expected to show a small growth this year.
Apple iOS is expected to lose market share to Android and Windows 8 and Windows RT this year.
More than half of total tablet sales sold in the UAE last year were Android based.
HCL, one of the largest computer manufacturers in India, said that hypermarkets and power retailers contribute 12-24 per cent of the total tablet sales.
“We have already seen a 10 per cent organic growth this year in the region and we expect another record year for HCL,” Srinath Nagarajan, Business Head of Mobility Business Unit at HCL Infosystems MEA, told Gulf News.
In 2010, the average prices were $1,035 and this year it is expected to be $399, reflecting a price decline of over 61 per cent over the years.
Even though low-cost tablets are selling like hot cakes and being bundled away in high volumes, they “will only be treated as a secondary device. Buyers of mid to high-end tablets are not very price-sensitive. They will not use a low-cost OEM brand for their official or primary use,” Charakla said.
