Tablet shipments in India decline 13.9 percent: Report

Tablet PC shipments in India declined by 13.9% to 1.03 million units in the January-March quarter of 2015, impacted by lack of “differentiated” products in the market, says a report. About 1.2 million units of tablets were shipped in the October-December quarter of 2014, according to CyberMedia Research’s (CMR) India Quarterly Tablets Market Review. “We had cautioned the industry that unless they make substantial differentiation in the value proposition for potential customers, tablet shipments are not going to grow. This is what the results now reinforce,” CMR lead analyst telecoms practice Faisal Kawoosa said. “Since there isn’t much value addition coming in the shape of specific solutions to enhance device usability at the moment, tablets are only becoming devices of convenience, essentially larger screen versions of smartphones,” he added. Kawoosa said this has resulted in tablets ranking lower in the list of ‘must have’ devices for the average user and being ‘nice-to-have’. In the first quarter of 2015, Samsung led the segment with 19.7% share, followed by Datawind (12.7%) and Micromax (9%). Broadband wireless access-enabled tablets accounted for 60% of the total shipments in the said quarter. PTI