 "CyberMedia research reveals sale of 158,000 tablet units in India")
A 9-month long research carried out by CyberMedia Research has finally concluded and it has some good news to share. Beginning from October 2010, the period when CyberMedia began its research, till June 2011, when it concluded, as many as 27 different models from 10 vendors were introduced in the country. Interestingly, sales of the tables in the Indian market touched a whopping 1,58,000 units, which is an achievement, considering that the tablet market has not gained a firm footing in India, yet. That aside, the research revealed that 3G-enabled tablets enjoyed precedence over Wi-Fi-enabled ones. The ratio signifying the favoritism stood at 70:30. Among the array of screen sizes available, users in India were found to prefer the 7-inchers, while Android v2.2 Froyo OS turned out to be the most favorable platform.
Emerging tablet market in India (Image credit: Getty Images)
The 9-month long research found Samsung Electronics to be the makers of the best selling tablet in the country, which the research adds is the outcome of the company’s price drop strategy. CyberMedia, additionally also mentions the entries of several tablet brands, during the different stages of the research. OlivePad, for example launched the first media tablet in India in July 2010. The first major international brand to launch followed in October 2010 – the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The Apple iPad, the most well recognized tablet, arrived in India only in January 2011. Further in the research it was revealed that, expectantly, a majority of tablet models that would enter the volume segment in the country would belong to a price band between Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 15,000, while tablets from RIM (PlayBook), Apple (iPad2), Motorola (XOOM) and Samsung (Galaxy Tab 7) belong to the higher-end segment.
Tabular representation of the Indian tablet market: Leading Vendors (in terms of unit shipments), October 2010-June 2011
Lastly, the research covered the broadbad wireless connectivity arena in the country, which holds a strategic position. It was learnt that, Reliance-Infotel got broadband wireless access (BWA) licences for 22 out of 23 circles in the spectrum auction in 2010, while Qualcomm won BWA licenses in four circles including Mumbai and Delhi. Aircel, Bharti, Tikona and Augere also won BWA licences in select circles.
Editor’s note: This report seems rather off the mark, and we are checking up with CyberMedia on the veracity of their data. The report claims that RIM has a market share of 21% with their BlackBerry PlayBook. The PlayBook as we all know was released in June 2011, and the report’s last data point month was June 2011. Seems implausible that RIM gained 21% market share in one month!
Update: Just got word from CyberMedia Research that the reason for the anomaly is that these are shipments and not actual sales.
“CyberMedia Research reports market size for media tablets in unit shipments from vendors to distributors; for the convenience of media persons and ease of understanding of readers, ‘shipments’ is used interchangeably with ‘sales’.”
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