Telecom Lead @ Mobile World Congress 2013: HP has launched Slate 7 — 7-inch consumer tablet on Android OS.
HP will launch the consumer tablet in the U.S. in April for $169.
It is too early to predict HP’s market share in tablet space in 2013. IDC says Apple is dominating the tablet market with 43.6 percent share in Q4 2012. Apple’s iPad shipment reached 22.9 million units.
The tablet PC market shipments reached 52.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, increasing 75.3 percent from 29.9 million units in 4Q11.
Recently, Tom Mainelli, research director, Tablets, at IDC, said: “New product launches from top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season.”
HP, the largest personal-computer maker, exited the consumer tablet market in 2011 when it killed its TouchPad device running on the WebOS operating system from its Palm unit.
In the consumer-tablet market, HP faces stiff competition from rivals including Amazon.com which sells the 7-inch Kindle Fire for $159 and Google itself, which sells the Nexus 7 for $199.
Apple’s iPad and iPad Mini, which has a 7.9-inch screen and starts at $329, controlled a 44 percent share of global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter of last year, according to IDC.
Samsung’s tablets, with a 15-percent global share, start at $200 with the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note devices.
The Slate features a dual-core 1.6 gigahertz processor from ARM Holdings (ARM), eight gigabytes of memory, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, according to a statement by the company. The device will be offered in overseas markets later this year.
Meanwhile, HP has reported 6 percent decrease in revenues at $28.4 billion in the first quarter. HP’s net income declined 16 percent to $1.2 billion. It’s the sixth consecutive quarter that HP’s revenue has dropped from the previous year.
