7 Inch Tablets and Mid Sized Devices Shipments Rise Sharply

7 Inch Tablet shipment RisesOver the past 12 months, unit shipments for mid-sized devices have been stronger than street’s expectations with firms such as IDC now forecasting a 2011-2015 CAGR of 28% for the category (vs. a forecast CAGR of 19% same time last year), a number closer to our last year’s forecast for a 30% growth rate. However, almost the entire upside has come about from Android-based 7-8″ tablets with Windows-based devices being significantly below expectations.

A combination of lower price points and better

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Is Asus Tablet Sales Sustainable ? What’s the Strategy ?

Asus Tablet StrategyAsus is now the No.3 tablet maker in the world, more than half of its tablet shipments are backed by the power of Google Nexus, and Google is likely to move the Nexus lineup to LG next year. While Asus is trying to keep the business, whether it can do so or not is of limited importance, in our view. If Google can move this business freely among different OEMs, then it is actually an ODM business rather than an own-brand business for Asus. The more Asus intends to keep the business, the more they need to suffer on margins (again, that’s exactly what ODM biz is all about).

Asus’ own-brand tablet run rate, based on our estimate, is only around 1M per quarter, meaning that Asus’ own-brand tablet is only around the size of that of Acer. Asus was one of the earliest and most aggressive Android tablet makers in the market. However, after two-and-a-half years, its

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Will Google Launch High End Android SmartPhone using Motorola Mobility ?

Motorola Android Mobile Holiday 2013Purchasing Motorola in May 2012 for $9.5bn ex-cash was confusing to many of us. Since then, Google has rationalized the business (sale of Motorola Home, divestiture of manufacturing operations and layoffs) and the net cost after asset sales and tax benefits has declined to an estimated $6-7bn.

Given Google’s timeframe for Motorola’s hardware product cycle revamp (12-18 months), it is reasonable to expect Google to launch its own high end Smartphones and tablets in Q4-2013, in time for the holidays. If Google can generate the same interest in its Motorola hardware products as it has for recent Nexus products, the product launches could be a catalyst.

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Why we Like Smasung Galaxy Note 8 over iPad ?

Samsung has unveiled Galaxy Note 8.0, an 8-inch tablet equipped with an S Pen, to compete with Apple’s iPad mini. The tablet has a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 and a pixel density of 189 ppi. It is based on Samsung Exynos 4 Quad with quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU (1.6 GHz), 2 GB RAM, with 16 / 32 GB of internal storage. It is equipped with a 5.0MP rear camera and 1.3MP front-facing camera.

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Lenovo’s ForthComing Android Tablets S6000 A3000 A1000

Lenovo announced three new Android-based tablets. The tablets included a pair of 7” tablets, the A1000 and A3000, and a 10” tablet, the S6000. Each of these tablets are running Mediatek CPUs, which suggests they will target first time tablet buyers, and/or emerging markets. Previous tablets have been larger NVDA Tegra and Intel Atom-based.

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