With new Intel tablets, Flipkart hopes to gain price, specs advantage over seasoned rivals

Flipkart yesterday announced that it was launching five new tablets in partnership with Intel , and the tablets would be under its recently launched DigiFlip pro brand. The cheapest tablet ET701 starts at Rs 5999 and is a WiFi only version, while the most expensive is the XT911 which is priced at Rs 15,999 and has an 8.9-inch screen with WiFI and 3G. All three tablets run on Intel Atom processors (dual-core). To read about our first impressions, click here.   So what is Flipkart hoping with this launch? We spoke to Pradeep Dodle – Senior Director – Retail, Flipkart about the kind of response that Flipkart’s XT712 (the first tablet) got and what they hope to achieve with this partnership via Intel. Below is the edited excerpt of that interaction.   Response to the first Flipkart tablet **"**The response has been good. That was our first attempt, we were nowhere in devices, so we just launched and we were looking forward to the customer feedback. A lot of people wrote back to us, wrote reviews. Most of them liked it, some people were neutral, some people bashed us up because they said we could do better. That’s what inspired us, we took it in the right spirit and that’s the reason why we have these five devices today. We’re hoping that the same customers will appreciate these products, a lot of their feedback has gone into these products."   On the partnership with Intel “The partnership with Intel is absolutely positive. We both share a passion for tablets, we both believe that as product the tablet market will grow and we need to deliver great products and experiences for users. Both teams have worked have closely together to launch these products.”   “Intel earlier was not prepared for mobility, but with Atom processor we know it’s extremely strong for tablets. It’s just not about performance, which is of course great, but also about power management and reliability, they have a lot of other things added. For example the GPU with Imagination Techonlogies, the Intel Media Accelerator, the cache that they have, all these will add to the performance and the customer will feel that in the product. It’s just not about the quad-core or octa-core processors.”   On what Flipkart did better with these tablets compared to the first DigiFlip Pro XT712 “The customers asked us to do more and take risks. These tablets have higher specifications than any other tablets in India and at a competitive price. If for Rs 6000, you want to go in the market, you won’t get a reliable tablet. At the Rs 6000 price point, you have Intel processor, you have IPS display, 1 GB RAM, you have both front and back cameras. Lot of these college going kids, school going kids, people who can’t afford higher end-device, they are looking for reliable solutions, especially youth. That’s the reason why we’ve launched it in four colours. Nobody is playing in that area, there are no players there. We’re not just offering price advantage, we are offering specifications advantage.”   “Even in the 8-inch tablet, you have a 30 percent bigger screen. We are delivering both experience and value for user. Where 8.9-inch tablet is concerned, it is the premium built device and purely for performance. It’s got a big battery 6500 mAH. If someone is looking for good gaming experience, this is the tablet to go for. And with these kind of specifications, it’s hard to find a 8.9-inch tablet for under Rs 25,000. In this segment, we’re suddenly opening up options for customers.”   Any plans on getting content bundled with the tablets in future “We are offering Flipkart ebooks content. But this is one of the feedback that we got back from users. With regard to content, we have to be very clear. In content, we need to be specific, we need to find the write partner, we’re working towards that.”   “We have to give relevant content. We could have put ten offers, but it has to be liked by the customers as well. For instance I’ll give you an example. A 10+2 student who buys a tablet, we could give him only academic content. Now that could be wrong, he might want videos, or music. So content has to be tailored to the users.”   “Our tablet comes with Google Play which gives access to a lot of content. So beyond that what do we want to do? Unless and until, we’re crystal clear about that we’ll not do anything, we don’t want to confuse customers.”   The market India where Flipkart hopes to grow in the tablet segment “Of course where the price point is concerned, we’ve got it right in tier-II and tier-III cities. We also need to look at infrastructural issues, whether there is Wifi for people to seamlessly use these tablets. In a smartphone, there is a clear use case. If you don’t want to use it for something else, atleast you can make phone calls with it. In a tablet it has to be connected for you to know its really power. With infrastructure growing, we expect it to get better.”   “Also in the tablet category, over 50 percent of the sales for tablets are beyond the top-ten cities. So we are already reaching these customers.”