The FINANCIAL — The overall tablet market in India has reached approximately 2.66 million units, a whopping 901% year-over-year growth from 2011, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker data for CY 2012.
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 in the second half of 2012.
"The unprecedented growth was fueled by 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, according to IDC, the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.
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 sizable chunk of the tablet market as well. 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.
According to IDC's forecast estimates the India tablet market is expected to reach a total of close to 6 million units in 2013, driven not just by the low-cost tablet space but also a slew of public sector projects that have been announced recently. Several state governments like UP, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Chattisgarh have already announced plans to deploy tablets for school and college students with an aim to improve the digital literacy rate among students. IDC expects these projects to have a snowball effect as other states will also look to replicate these initiatives.
"The growth in the India tablet market is expected to slow down and become more stable in 2013. However, mobile operators can play a bigger role in better adoption of tablet devices among consumers with complementary data plans, better – wider 3G connectivity and local content availability," added Yadav.
According to Kiran Kumar, Research Manager at IDC, "We anticipate business adoption to beef up the overall tablet market too. We see integration of tablets in enterprises as a natural evolution. Also, government initiatives and low cost tablets may drive initial adoption, but vendors' ability to transition these users to better devices will determine the long-term growth potential for this market."
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