India Tablet Market sluggish - IDC

The Indian tablet market has continued with the struggle to attract new buyers. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the India tablet market shipments for Q1 2014 stood at 0.78 million units, representing a year-on-year drop of -32.8% over Q1 2013. The drop was primarily due to lack of new buyers in the market.
 
“Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) compliance is certainly hurting the white-box market. International device vendors like Apple and Samsung grew in comparison against Q4 2013, posting significant double-digit growth rates in Q1. However at an overall level, the branded vendors were unable to capitalize on the space left vacant by the erosion from white-box and smaller vendors,” says Karan Thakkar, Senior Market Analyst of Tablets, Enterprise Client Devices and PC Monitors at IDC India.

Top 3 Vendors are Samsung, Apple and Micromax. IDC anticipates the overall tablet market to hover around the same mark as reported in Q1 2014. There are few inhibitors to the growth like emerge of Phablets, BIS certification embossing issue. Most of the tablet vendors import shipments. Any alteration to the hardware design of the product has to be done at the source location, which in turn will pose a threat to the supply chain and there will be a direct impact on the launch of a product in a different market and its availability in India.