Global shipments of “white label” tablets are likely to grow by less than 15 percent this year from last year, a slowdown from the 77.6 percent expansion seen last year because of the rise of larger smartphones and falling prices of tablets sold by branded vendors, a market researcher said.
A white-label product is an item that is similar to a brand-name device, but offered at a lower price.
DIGITIMES FORECAST
Taipei-based Digitimes Research has predicted that global white-label tablet shipments will grow to 103.5 million units this year from 90.4 million units last year.
However, the forecast growth for this year appears to be losing steam from last year, when shipments expanded by more than two-thirds from the 50.9 million units in 2012.
Digitimes analyst Anthony Chen (陳駿逸) told the Taipei Times on Tuesday that the popularity of larger smartphones, known as “phablets,” is one of the major factors affecting the white-label tablet market.
In addition, brand vendors’ move to launch more affordable Android tablets priced as low as US$100 is also seen as intensifying pricing competition in the market, Chen said in an e-mail.
EMERGING MARKETS
For this quarter, global shipments of white-label tablets are forecast to fall by 19.6 percent quarter-on-quarter to 21.3 million units, which Digitimes Research attributed to fewer working days in China because of the Lunar New Year holiday, as well as decreasing demand in other emerging markets.
Emerging markets such as Russia and Southeast Asian and East European countries account for between 80 percent and 90 percent of global sales of white-label tablets, Digitimes Research said.
The projected shipments of 21.3 million units for the first quarter represent a 1.9 percent increase from the 20.9 million units shipped during the same period of last year, Chen said.
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