Tablet market price war is imminent

Since the low-priced market was detonated, the wave of price cuts quickly spread from China and the United States to the European markets such as Britain and Germany.

On October 15, Motorola announced the launch of a low-cost XOOM tablet for home users. The low-cost XOOM, priced at US$379, is US$120 less expensive than its predecessor, and it’s close to the iPad2. Previously, the industry believed that due to the introduction of the iPad2 and the price reduction of the iPad1, the sales of Motorola's XOOM were not satisfactory. According to its second-quarter financial report, only 440,000 units were sold. Therefore, conducting differentiated operations with the iPad has become the key point for XOOM to expand its market share. At present, the only way to rapidly increase market share is to cut prices.

Coincidentally, on September 28, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said after showing off the KindleFire, "We hope to provide high-end products at prices that are not high-end," and Other tablet competitors are not Competing, and just selling a piece of hardware, a 7-inch screen and a $199 price might be the real weapon Amazon is using to challenge the tablet market. Before that, HP TouchPad (10-inch, running WebOS) 16GB version dropped from 499 US dollars to 99.99 US dollars, a few days, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, BarnesNoble all sold off.

In response, after entering the month of October, the Blackberry PlayBook, Lenovo K1, HTC Flyer, ASUS EeePadTransformer, Acer Iconia, and Toshiba Thrive have all reduced their prices by more than 100 US dollars. Currently, the price of the iPad is about half that of the iPad.

Obviously, the flat-panel market price cuts are coming.

In the low-end product market, the sale of big brands into the third quarter after the price cuts caused a chain reaction across the industry.

Chen Xiaowen (a pseudonym) is a bit too busy during the National Day. He is a pre-sales service staff of a certain brand of online shopping malls that specializes in a certain brand of tablet computers. Since the brand's tablet computer lowered its price from 2,499 yuan to 1,000 yuan before the National Day, their counters are "very good." Although the boss had a deep understanding of the sales during the National Day, but Chen Xiaowen saw from the store's report, the monthly sales of more than 3,000 units, "This was previously unthinkable," and such businesses in the online store at least four Five. At present, the two versions of the brand's tablet computer have been in semi-discontinued state in the store where Chen Xiaowen is located. There is no exact time even when the goods arrive.

Out of stock is not just online merchants. Gome and Suning in the traditional stores have already been out of stock. According to a salesman from Bainaohui, during the National Day, the Legend Pad A1 sold out insanely, and even a not-so-good shop sold more than 50 units, and even prototypes were bought. The e-commerce platform Jingdong Mall has been booking during the eleventh, after arrival within a day or two of all sold out.

Similar to Lenovo's flat-panel sales, some white-brand products and some small-brand products. The configuration of these products without exception is 7-inch screen, about 1G CPU, the price is between 400-700 yuan. "A light product I sold about 3,000 a month," said Xiaojuan Liu (a pseudonym) in the Taobao marketplace, excitedly. In her view, sales of tablets have risen somewhat unbelievably since the second half of the year.

The news of various market growth seems to confirm the industry's expectations for market growth. According to IDC tracking data, the growth rate of tablet PCs in China in the second quarter of 2011 was 235%. Taiwan’s “Electronic Times” forecast is more optimistic. In the first half of this year, global tablet shipments increased by more than 420% year-on-year.

In the low-end market, some small-brand manufacturers have greatly improved their functionality and humanization and accurately grasped the price, making their products more pragmatic and more aggressive.

In June 2011, DisplaySearch released a quarterly report on tablet sales and prospects, pointing out that some of the lesser-known brands of tablet PCs have become the fastest growing tablet PCs in the world. Shipments of white-brand tablet PCs increased from 567,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 1.9 million units in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 235% from the previous quarter. China has become the largest white tablet computer market, accounting for 44% of global shipments.

Some industry analysts pointed out in this regard that the market for white tablet PCs has grown rapidly. The market share in the first quarter of 2011 was nearly 20%, indicating that the consumer demand for tablet PCs in the mainstream market is increasing. At the same time, the market performance also indicates that the user’s choices are further. Variety.

Changes in the overall market structure With the expansion of the tablet market and the growth of user groups, in terms of users, the repositioning of tablets and the definition of functions are changing.

The industry believes that among ordinary users in China, tablet PCs are basically formed as complementary products between notebooks and mobile phones, and the range of applications for tablet PCs is gradually becoming clear. At the same time, apart from the increase in the number of user groups whose iPads are fashion-labeled, the general user group focusing on practicality and entertainment is rapidly growing. The value of tablet computers is moving from fashion to practicality, and its true application value is returning. The change in user demand for tablet functionality and convenience is reflected in the market's 7-inch and better-controlled product sales.

Another reason for the changes in the market is that the layout of chip manufacturers and design companies that serve tablet PCs has already formed in Shenzhen.

According to our reporter, chip manufacturers Rockchip, CrystalCrystal, Marvel, VIA, Freescale, as well as high-end Samsung, Invista and Qualcomm have set up service agencies in Shenzhen as early as 2011 to strongly support the low-end market. It was the strong support of the upstream manufacturers that enabled some of Shenzhen's small brand manufacturers to quickly grow up with nearly 85% of the export products before the domestic low-end market broke out. In the tablet PC's supply chain, touch, screen, and operating systems are readily available, and related shell molds are the strengths of Shenzhen. In order to improve the user experience, small and medium-sized brand manufacturers rely more heavily on the revised versions of hundreds of Android enthusiasts. These free shared R&D achievements are in many ways better than the Android versions of large manufacturers.

Because of the complete support in the industry chain, the prices of small and medium-sized flat panel products are mainly concentrated in the range of 100 to 200 US dollars. And these products are mainly sold to foreign countries in the early stage, and will begin to increase in volume in the domestic market in the middle of this year. For the upstream manufacturers, they are more accurately grasping the market pricing and application range of the tablet PCs. This is another direct factor in the low-end market since the middle of this year.

"Price is an important factor affecting any consumer product, and the current premium for tablets is very normal in terms of the cost of components." DisplaySearch senior analyst Richard Shim told IT Times that "the rise of the white tablet PC market indicates that The market is responding to this premium and trying to cut prices to drive more consumers to buy."

Zenithink is a tablet computer brand that is rarely known to domestic consumers. However, this small manufacturer located in the industrial area of ​​the Sparrow Ridge, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, was a US tablet consumer during the month of IHSiSuppli. In the "Favorite Products" survey, it ranked second with 8.75 points, second only to iPad's 8.8 points. According to IHSiSuppli's statistics, Zhuonis introduced the 10-inch tablet ePad for the first time in the Amazon hot-selling list.

Some analysts pointed out that it is small-brand manufacturers' attention to user experience that meets the requirements of customers for low prices, convenience, and high humanity, thereby accelerating sales growth in the low-end market.

With the support of many chip manufacturers, the outbreak of the low-end flat-panel market appears to be inevitable. At present, 20% of the market share may be just the beginning. Perhaps the future tablet market will further become a two-tiered pattern.

Price cuts are bound to be firmly controlled by Apple in the high-end market. Under the homogenized “ARM+Android” structure, the major manufacturers have further reduced the space for self-development, and the user experience cannot open up gaps with small-brand manufacturers. Because the gap between them and the iPad can not be shortened in the short term, the market performance can not win the overall situation, which has brought great pressure on the big brand manufacturers.

Although there have been constant releases from manufacturers, the sales of flat-panel products surpassed expectations in the first half of this year. However, from the perspective of the total market, after only two ends of Apple and Shanzhai have been controlled, only about 20% of the market has been squeezed into the market. More large brand manufacturers, which makes their sales growth is far below the growth rate of about 300% of the overall market.

In the global market, after HP cleared the TouchPad for $99, Amazon sees the huge market potential of low-priced tablet PCs. Its newly launched KindleFire has exceeded 25 in the five days after its release. Million. The market and users' demand for cheap flat-panels is evident.

According to the analysis, Amazon KindleFire sold about 5 million units in a quarter, which is an unattainable figure for other major brand manufacturers outside of Apple. The final $199 price of Amazon Kindle Fire will not necessarily cause a major threat to the iPad, because the application scope and user positioning of the two products are not aimed at the same market, and the real threat may be precisely because it has been copied behind the iPad. Apple models Samsung, Acer, Asus and Blackberry may only become KindleFire's cannon fodder.

In the Chinese market, Lenovo’s performance after the National Day holiday price cut went far beyond its own preparations and became a potent drug. If at this rate, by the end of the year, Lenovo may get 15%-18% market share. It may be achieved.

Affected by high-end sales growth and high-speed growth in the low-cost market, the sales strategies of major manufacturers are quietly changing.

In addition to Motorola's earlier version of the XOOM Home Edition, which was priced at US$120, the correspondent was also informed that from October 1, HTCFlyer’s price was priced from US$499 to US$299, and BlackBerry and Best Buy were also testing 299 US$7. The price of the inch BlackBerry PlayBook is reduced by $200 over the original price; at the same time, the actual selling price of the Samsung GALAXYTab has dropped from 3999 yuan to 3300 yuan; Dell is targeting the world's first 10-inch tablet Streak10Pro in Beijing, priced at 2,999 yuan; Acer The launch of the new 7-inch Tablet PC A100 price has dropped to 2499 yuan ... ...

The news of price cuts has come one after another, but some people think that these price cuts may not really change the fate of the manufacturers, because for users, Amazon and Lenovo have become the standard, with the first-line brands, not many people will be basically the same for no reason The product costs more than $100. Whether it is abroad or domestic, with the listing of KindleFire and the expansion of Lenovo A1, the space reserved for brand manufacturers will become smaller and smaller.

The real price of blood will probably be unavoidable. From the point of view of Amazon's time-to-market, this day is not far off.