Micromax leads Indian tablet mkt; Apple third

The tablet market in India recorded sales of 0.55 million units for the second quarter of calendar year 2012 with Micromax emerging as the market leader and Apple positioned in third place. CyberMedia Research in its report 'India quarterly media tablet market review for 2Q 2012' said that Micromax led with a 18.4% share, followed by Samsung with 13.3% and Apple in third position with a 12.3% share in terms of sales by unit shipments.

Though the Indian tablet market is still at a nascent stage, it has become competitive due to the advent of new vendors with entry level offerings, the report said. Close to 90 vendors have launched their tablets thus far and the average sale value in the second quarter has dropped to a little above R13,000 from R26,000 in the first quarter. This is because a majority of vendors in early 2012 launched their products in the R5,000-10,000 price range.

"During 2Q 2012, 47.4% of tablet sales were from new entrants in the market with a strong focus on addressing application areas in the education and entertainment segments. This trend demonstrates clearly that vendors are positioning their devices at India's youth," said Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice.

"As Android devices become increasingly popular, competition is increasing in the Indian market with more and more vendors launching devices based on Android OS. The share of devices based on other operating systems like Windows, iOS and QNX are expected to rise in future in view of the recent announcement of the Microsoft Windows Surface Tablet, the launch of the Apple iPad 3 and reduction in the BlackBerry Playbook prices," Faisal said.

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