Several leading PC and Smartphone manufacturers of tablets are having “second thoughts” about the viability of launching an Android based tablet into the Australian market due to what has been described as “anaemic” sales overseas.Among those to have delayed the launch of an Android based tablet in Australia are Toshiba, Asus, HTC and LG.
Brooke Crothers, an analyst at IDC Japan, wrote recently: “A stroke of serendipity has arrived in the form of a tepid consumer reception so far for tablets beyond Apple’s iPad. Sales of the Motorola Xoom are, to date, anaemic, while the sell-through to consumers of Samsung’s Android tablet has also been underwhelming”.
It’s expected that Motorola will launch their Xoom tablet on the 5th of May in Australia. LG has already told SmartHouse that they will not be launching an Android tablet this year in Australia while Toshiba executives are still struggling to deliver their Android tablet, after announcing it six months ago.
Also struggling to get traction in the tablet market is RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook which has been slammed by reviewers for being more of an appendage to a BlackBerry phone than a standalone tablet.
Critics have labelled the BlackBerry tablet as an unfinished product basically, and are advising consumers to hold out purchasing one until RIM begins rolling out some updates to get it up to par with the iPad 2 and Android tablets, as well as waiting to see just how the BlackBerry Android app store will turn out.
According to Crothers the delay in launching Android based tablets may create an opening for Intel with their new Atom processor and Microsoft who is expected to announce a new Windows based tablet OS early in 2012.
Last week Intel demonstrated their Atom-based tablet at a developer conference in China.
Richard Shim, an analyst at DisplaySearch said: “The door to this market is open. The longer it takes for these other products to get rolling, the more opportunity there is for Intel,” said.
Jack Gold of consulting firm J. Gold Associates wrote recently: “Though Apple has set the bar, it’s not going to be alone in this space. Right now it looks like Android will have the majority of tablet sales (outside of Apple), and Intel has a dedicated team of people to make Android work the best it can on its Atom chips. They have a lot of resources they can apply”.
Gold said that Intel can bring to bear all of its manufacturing, security, and media processing know-how. He believes Intel will continue to whittle away successfully at the inherent power-efficiency advantage of ARM chips. “My take is that Intel can capture 20 to 25 percent of that remaining market outside of Apple.” He said.
Shim warned manufacturers to remain cautious. “It all depends, of course, how well Honeycomb (Android 3.0) runs on Atom. He said.
Shim also warns Intel not to put too many eggs in the Nokia MeeGo basket, which is a hard sell to developers in a field crowded with Hewlett-Packard’s WebOS and RIM’s QNX, in addition to Android.
DigiTimes said that sales of Xoom tablet PCs have been lower than expected and that Taiwanese PC manufacturers blamed brand image, pricing, insufficient applications and the unstable performance of Android 3.0 as reasons for downturn in sales of Android based tablets.
They said that Google was unable to offer sufficient support to manufacturing partners as a result several manufacturers have decided to delay the launch of Android 3.0 tablet PCs, they added.
Asustek Computer (ASUS) has postponed the launch dates of its Android 3.0 16GB and 32GB Eee Pad Transformer tablets in the Taiwan market to the end of April and to May, respectively, instead of April 15 as originally planned, the sources indicated.
Smartphone vendor HTC has also intended to postpone the date set for volume production of its Flyer tablet PCs as the company has been slow in the purchase of touch panels, pointed out sources at upstream component makers. The company is set to launch the Flyer table PCs in the second quarter.
In response, HTC said that its roadmap for the tablet PCs has remained unchanged. But the company failed to hand out a timetable for the launch of the Flyers.
