Max Wang, Taipei; Joseph Tsai

 

Seeing that global tablet PC shipments will reach 60 million units in 2011 and have a chance to approach close to 100 million units in 2012, despite Apple currently still holding about 60-70% of market share in the segment, white-box players in China are still set to launch new tablet PC products in the second quarter of 2012, according to sources from the supply chain in China.

The sources noted that white-box players have not performed well in the tablet PC market in 2011 with several recently going out of business. However, since white-box players are still aggressively developing tablet PCs, the number of white-box players in China is still over several thousand.

The sources estimated that total tablet PC shipments from China white-box players will only be about four million units in 2011 due to unstable quality and because the Android platform is not yet optimized for use on tablet PCs. But as white-box players recently experienced a wave of elimination, while Google just launched Android 4.0, it should help these players to become more complete.

Since the average cost of a 7-inch white-box tablet PC is only about CNY300 (US$47) and 10.1-inch models are about CNY500, compared to Amazon's Kindle Fire, white-box tablet PCs still have an advantage in cost.

In China, first-tier vendors' tablet PCs average CNY3,000 while some China-based vendors are offering 10.1-inch models at an average price of CNY2,000, still far higher than those from the white-box players. Compared to the netbook market, in which brand vendors are offering netbooks at a similar price level as those from white-box players, competition in the tablet PC will give white-box players more chance to profit.