India‘s tablet market sales grow 673% year-on-year

Data released by CyberMedia Research reveals that the entry of new tablet vendors and introduction of offerings from existing vendors at low to medium price points has led to a surge in sales in the Indian tablet market. Significantly, Micromax has emerged at the top, followed by Samsung and Apple.

According to the research, the tablet market recorded sales of 0.55 million units in Q2 2012 (Quarter ended June 30, 2012). In the overall India tablets market, Micromax leads with 18.4 percent share, followed by Samsung at second position with 13.3 percent and Apple at third position with 12.3 percent, in terms of sales (unit shipments) during the Q2 2012.

A statement on behalf of CyberMedia said though the India Tablets market is still at a nascent stage; at the same time, it has become competitive due to the entry of new vendors with entry level offerings. Close to 90 vendors launched their tablets till Q2 2012.

The average price of the tablets in Q2 2012 has dropped to a little above Rs 13,000 from Rs 26,000 in the Q1 2012.

Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice, said, “During 2Q 2012, 47.4 percent 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.”

“As Android devices become increasingly popular with users across the world, competition is increasing in the tablets market with more and more vendors launching devices based on the Android OS. The share of devices based on other operating systems like Windows, iOS and QNX are expected to rise,” Kawoosa added.

“Going forward we see vendors launching segments specific segments such as healthcare, retail and e-governance. In terms of tablet use cases, the popular categories are internet browsing, e-mail, entertainment, gaming, social networking, flight information and cricket updates. Clearly, the Indian user is also taking to the tablet as a content consumption device,” added Tarun Pathak, Analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice