India ‘Tab'bed

From consumers to enterprises, the adoption of tablets is gaining momentum

Tablets are transforming from a luxury item to a necessity and it is one of the fastest-growing market segments in the country as on date. 2012 was the year of the tablet and it is expected the dream run will continue in 2013 as well.

Tablets are still in their nascent stage, but they are gradually being adopted by a larger audience. Consumers are using tablets to fulfill their various digital needs, in both their professional and personal lives. One of the biggest drivers of the tablet market is the mobile lifestyle of consumers that requires devices that can facilitate the on-the-go lifestyle. Tablets are increasingly being recognized as Do-it-all devices and their small and light form is an added advantage.

According to a recent report by Cyber Media Research, 3.11 million tablets were shipped in 2012 and out of those, 1.09 million tablets were shipped between October and December of the same year. These figures are encouraging as they indicate a steady growth in the Indian market. With the modern day demand for all round connectivity and mobility, the tablet market is poised to grow in the coming future.

With organizations beginning to see the benefits of giving their employees the freedom to carry their own devices, the need for such portable devices is only going to increase. The 2013 CIO Enterprise Tablet Survey commissioned by Dell and conducted amongst enterprise IT leaders, ranging from CIOs and CTOs to IT Directors of more than 300 organizations has revealed that 50% of the survey participants are considering a BYOD implementation within the next 6 months while, 80% in the next one year.

Tablet PC sales worldwide are estimated to reach 388 million units in 2016, surpassing the combined sales of desktops, laptops and ultrabooks in terms of volume, while revenues from tablet PC sales are expected to multiply five times between 2012 to 2016.

Market Scenario

IDC India estimates 160,000 tablets shipped in the country in 2012 and estimates a volume of 2,650,000 tablets in 2013. Indrajit Sabharwal, MD, Simmtronics said, "The tablets were first launched in the year 2010 in India. In 2011, the sale was close to 4.5 million units. This sale is expected to be around 23.6 million units in 2017."

Saji Kumar, director - product management, Acer India said, "We have been witnessing an increase in the Tablet computer sales in India. The growth is seen from both consumers and the corporate buyers. With a wide range of form factors available in the marketplace, there has been an emerging trend amongst the tablet users to opt for 7-inch model." While, Sandeep Arya, MD, Amtrak Info Systems said, "Initially our focus is to maximize the user experience. In a period January to December cycle we are confident of 8-10 Lakhs of units demand from the market."

Going ahead, the market indicators predict that the tablet market will continue evolving and the demand for them will be growing from different parts of the country. Peter Chang, regional head, South Asia and country manager, System Business Group, ASUS India said, "With a focus on reaching the customers better in India, we have been quite persistent with our retail expansion strategy. Apart from the metros, we have also launched our exclusive stores in the Tier II and Tier III towns and cities of India."

Tablet PC is today globally recognized for its ability to deliver digital inclusiveness across all stratas of society. Vijender Singh, MD, Pantel Technologies said, "Apart from retail consumer sales, major e-governance initiatives of government of India are also now based on the tablet PC. Projects like E-Panchayat, E-District, etc. all have the tablet PC as a central device - for access of services under these programs." Adding to this,
Amul Mittal, co-founder, Zync Global said, "In recent times India, has widely accepted the tablets and from a trend it has become a requirement, a necessity. The untapped non-metro markets are also eager to buy tablets for educational and entertainment purposes."

Adoption Scenario

The tablet industry has got a good response from the customers and looks promising in the country. Compared to the other PCs, Tablets offer productivity, entertainment, adaptability, a longer battery life along with a host of new features on the go and these USPs become the device's prime growth drivers.

Vijender Singh said, "In India, consumers already have a choice of over 90 tablet models from over 40 different manufacturers. Low-cost tablets also are the talk of the town."

Bettering the design of Laptops, Tablets are lightweight, smaller, with better screens and ergonomics, which make them very easy to carry around. Laptops, which are supposed to be mobile devices, can take a while to start. One of the reasons of carrying around a tablet as opposed to a laptop is the superior battery life.

Shishir Singh, director, product marketing, Dell India said, "With a steady shift in lifestyle towards greater freedom in mobility in India, consumers are looking for a device that can do it all while providing them with flexible solutions to match their mobile lifestyle. A growth in spending power has also influenced the market of tablets with more and more consumers investing in tablets." Shishir Singh further added, "As the organizations are starting to realize the benefits of letting their employees bring their own devices to workplaces, it will prompt the employee to look for do-it-all devices, like the Dell Latitude 10, that can facilitate their work without hindering their mobility, while being highly manageable and providing enterprise-class security."

Tablets are designed to make the user's life simpler and efficient. They can be quite helpful for handling basic tasks, like checking e-mail or managing schedules at home and at their work place. Since a tablet is just a large touch screen, it's a stellar device for watching movies and TV shows. One can also find games and interactive utility applications to add to the fun. Developers are also reacting on the feedback for this device and are building creative applications.

Indian Tablet market is observing a transition from desktop PC to Tablet PC, as more and more people are seeking to adopt the mobility offered by Tablets. Arya said, "Tablet PC user base is expected to likely to grow at a CAGR of 107 per cent."

Saurabh Grover, director, monitor and tablet business, AOC India said, "It is the enterprise segment that is driving the sales and adoption of this technology. We are seeing a trend of tablet adoption in the education sector as well, although this is in primary level and will take little time to come up in a big way. We are also seeing a trend coming up, where tier II and III cities are coming up with immense opportunities for the range of budget tablets." Highlighting another interesting aspect, Sumeet Singh Tuli said, "Phablet are the future of Tablet Industry. 7 Inch tablet will be taken over by 10-inch tablet very soon. Low cost phablets aimed at bottom of pyramid will continue to dominate the market. Ever increasing demand for 7" phablet will shift towards 5" smart phone and 10" pc tablet."

But Rahul Agarwal, executive director, Commercial Business Segment, Lenovo India said, "We believe that while tablets will not replace PCs completely, they enhance the total computing experience by enabling greater collaboration and productivity in the enterprise. Lenovo aims at selling 450,000 tablets (consumer + enterprise) in India in the next one year. That said, the tablet market for enterprises is still in a budding phase and many companies are still assessing the benefits of introducing tablets in the workspace because of the added implications on data security and the effectiveness of existing networks to facilitate unified access to data."

Competitive Landscape

Gurpreet Brar, director, SMB and Channel, Personal Systems Group, HP India said, "The rise in mobile population and increased explosion of wifi and mobile broadband networks such as 3G and 4G gaining traction has proved as a big push for fulfilling the communication, entertainment and connectivity requirements of consumer's on- the-go. All these factors are directly influencing the present situation and are significant in projecting the growth curve of tablet PCs in the future."

Tablet PCs have emerged as a major revolution in the domestic IT market ever since its launch a few years back. The introduction of the Aakash tablet by the government in the last quarter of 2011 opened the market for low cost tablet PCs in the country. It aroused the interest of the consumers and also generated demand from a cross-section of consumers. Chang said, "Like the global markets, the Indian market too is experiencing an increased traction towards portability and efficiency. This transformation is evident with the advent of tablets, Ultrabooks, convertibles and hybrids."

With increasing players in the marketplace, the outlook for the Indian tablet PC has been extremely promising and consumer's acceptance has also been steadily increasing. Chang said, "We at ASUS, have products in the tablet segment at different price points with best in class features and hybrid designs. Even in the budget segment, with a price range of `5,000 to `10,000, our tablet has the best-in-class features with a solid output."
Grover said, "India is a very brand conscious market; it is great challenge for the domestic and some of the international vendors to build the trust within the consumers. So understanding the consumer demand, locating the business center and customizing the products accordingly gives a win-win situation to the vendors."

The Tablet market in India is one of the fastest growing markets around the globe. With its introduction in July 2010 in India, the market has witnessed huge growth in terms of demand, shipments and emergence of various players- national & international in the industry. The product strategies are in view of the target segment every industry player is catering to. Sushmita Das, VP - Business, Kobian said, "Many home grown brands today are offering extremely low cost products with features like display, etc been compromised to an extent where the tablet experience is lost. Thus for any player the right mix of features with price is most important."

Singh said, "Domestic strategy for Penta T-Pad tablet PC is focused on the following: Product customization - relevant to India market, focus on TCO (Total cost of ownership) - making the device usage affordable and focus on Low-cost tablet PC opportunity; again relevant to the Indian market-place specifically. While, the international strategy is focused on telecom operator tie-ups where we develop customized offerings for our major telecom partners - selling the products in the Middle East, Africa and East European markets."

Shishir Singh said, "We are constantly listening for ways to improve our customer experience whether it is through our devices or services. Through these conversations and collected data, we realized that our customers want flexible solutions which are secure, manageable and durable while letting them enjoy an always connected lifestyle. We firmly believe that end user computing is no longer about the device or technology but, about maximizing the balance between end user preferences, productivity and IT control; delivering a seamless, secure and manageable end user experience that provides anywhere, anytime connectivity and access to work, play, learn, collaborate and connect."

On the other hand, Gautam Advani, global head, Mobility Business Unit, HCL Infosystems said, "We have studied consumer behaviour very closely and thus, design products to suit the needs of the Indian market keeping ourselves a notch above competition."

Role of Channel Partners

The IT channels in India have been slow and steady adapters of this new device - the Tablet PC. With the advent of Windows 8 based tablets on the Intel Cloverfield architecture - this transition should gain momentum. Singh said, "As on date, the Telecom channels in India sell more than 60% of all tablets sold in the market today; this may have a lot to do with the fact that all Smartphone vendors are also tablet PC suppliers in the market."
Chang said, "They play a crucial role in making our products and solutions widely available and we have new channel initiatives, which are designed to empower and make them profitable." Chang further added, "We have been working on strengthening our distribution channel and are focusing on escalating regional level distributors to help us to ensure that our products reach tier-2 and tier-3 cities apart from the tier-1 cities."

There is a definite and substantial scope for S/I(s) and Solution providers to build their solutions around the Tablet PC as a mobile computing device that can connect with multiple I/O devices w/o access to power supply. Das said, "Progression with Technology is the normal and logical path today. SI and solution providers do need to incorporate Tablets and then add in the various accessories along with it in their offerings today."

Software is another catalyst to modernize today's IT environments, enabling organizations to do more and achieve greater business results. There is a huge opportunity for partners to unlock new business opportunities through tablet sales by incorporating mobility solutions that support and make easier a company's transition towards a BYOD model. Shishir Singh said, "Today, Dell Mobility Solutions accommodate Corporate-Owned, Choose-Your-Own and Bring-Your-Own Device (BYOD) management strategies while providing flexibility to interoperate with existing infrastructure and business applications. Additionally, these solutions can be configured to work together as part of a complete turnkey offering, incorporating a full range of Dell devices, including endpoint management, remote network access, monitoring, virtualization, data protection, security and identity management."

Highlight another key point, Arya said, "At enterprise business levels where sales force, data collection, etc. are of importance, there comes a requirement of having a handled device through which all these can be fulfilled. Here, system integrators and solution providers have great scope of providing all these kinds of solutions in the devices as part of their offerings."

Voicing similar opinion, Sandeep Popli, Country Head, Go Tech Digital said, "Yes there are lots of scopes for system integrators or solution provides to incorporate tablets. There are many day-to-day examples like many restaurants are using tablets to take order. Many hotels have installed tablets in rooms for better customer experience. The smart CCTV companies in homes are using tablets. Huge scope of Sis and solution providers and Go Tech is hardware partner to many such solution providers"
Going ahead, Solution provider will play significant role in increasing the productivity of tablets. Brar said, "This is much more pronounced in case of business tablets, where business user will need customized interface which help in linking legacy systems/databases with tablets. Executives on the move will like to have access to vital parameters like sales, inventory, orders etc for with Solution provides will be required."

Emergence of BYOD

BYOD is a good opportunity for value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators (SIs) to initiate a conversation with a potential customer. VARs and SIs should begin by asking the customer who the intended user is based on function, and what applications, content, and devices they use. This basic step is a gateway to a more technology-based and contextual discussion.

Singh said, "BYOD is not an opportunity relevant to the Tablet PC market. The SI(s) or Solutions Providers have a great opportunity in making their product offering(s) around the Tablet PC." Adding to this, Das said, "BYOD is a boon for Sis where they shall be able to offer a solution for a large segment of users. Customization to the need of the user and the corporate been tapped into is very important and that shall decide the success into such opportunities."

With increasing acceptance for BYOD, both integrators and solution providers have started taking 360 degree approach to cater bespoke and standard needs of customers with third party system and solutions. Chang said, "They need to advise their customer to consider BYOD from five technology perspectives: network, email, compliance, virtualisation, and licensing. This will help resellers educate the customer and define their needs effectively."

With BYOD integration, companies will be looking at developing their own apps to cater to their specific business needs and integrate them into the tablet devices. The tablet can serve an infinite purpose based on the apps one integrates it with. Kumar said, "To ensure effective implementation of BYOD, it is important for IT managers to deploy third-party applications onto employees' personal devices in order to add some amount of security and management control."

Advani said, "We have been selling our tablets in the enterprise space for a while now and we've won some breakthroughs deals in this space. We have developed HCL's Enterprise Mobility Apps for tablets, such as Sales Force Automation, Service Force Automation, Product Catalogue, Form Filling etc which allow Enterprise sales and service teams to manage their day to day operations on the move." Advani added, "In addition, as a part of our Mobility & EAS team, we have an in-house application development team which focuses on developing apps for tablets and provide advisory services to our customers for implementing BYOD, organizational policies and data security mechanisms. There are multiple scenarios where all of these solutions are bundled with our tablets to form a unique offering."

Sector Impact

While most expect the addressable Tablet PC market to be limited to consumers, at least initially, enterprise adoption of tablets have been one of the biggest surprises in the early days of the tablet market and the growth is going strong.

Chang said, "It is estimated that in next five years the demand for Tablet PC's will increase five fold in Enterprise segment as most of Fortune 500 companies had either deployed or are piloting the device. The developers are continuously developing applications suitable for the enterprise usage, which would make the device much more workplace friendly."

Tablets have received phenomenal response from the GenY audience as well as young professionals but, going forward and looking at how technology is changing the lives of people, even enterprises are accepting the need of a more portable device. Singh said, "Education sector has benefited from technology and its applications since a very long time and has welcomed tablets with open arms to suit the academic needs of students. We are also seeing a lot of use cases emerging in the healthcare and BFSI space with both Pharma and Insurance companies seeing benefits to offering Tablets to their Field force to enable them to update data and maintain records on the go." While, Arya said, ‘In many applications in these industries, you do not need to create content but employees can use a tablet as sales catalogues."

Mittal from Zync Global said, "Departments such as healthcare, local council, agriculture, Defence and military forces are also potential tablet adopters in the Government sector. In the corporate industry, sectors such as insurance, pharmaceuticals, market research, aviation, logistics and school education are early adopters and this trend is continue to grow in the coming years."

As mentioned earlier, tablets are dynamic and have experienced terrific adoption amongst the end users. It attracts attention with its lightweight, its design, its ability to function basic tasks perfectly and efficiently on the go with a better battery life. Users are interested in a device that lets them work while being mobile and a Tablet does just that. Also, with the entry-level and mid-range tablets there is more traction for this device segment. An increasing number of enterprises are also opting for tablet PCs driven by mobility, ease of use, low cost and availability of applications.

Highlighting certain industry segments, Das said, "Education segment is the first to gain acceptability and change with Tablet PCs. Followed by are the Medical (Hospital) and other service industries where the Tablet growth is most evident." While, Kumar said, "The tablet PC market in India has witnessed a burgeoning demand from consumers and customers in the education, automotive and sales force personnel."

Shishir Singh said, "Companies that have a high amount of customer/ client engagement are also finding it useful to equip their sales team with tablets. With more and more enterprises realizing the benefits of BYOD, it is going to fuel the growth of the tablet market as mobile professionals will look at tablets to serve their business needs. With 80% of organization looking to implement a BYOD model within the next one year (Dell CIO Enterprise Survey 2013), the go to device will become the tablet."

Evolution Ahead

In a short span of time, tablets have become a hot selling, aspirational and a consumer phenomenon. 2012 was the year of tablets and with growing competition and increase in the number of the vendors, the market is expected to grow with the growing demand. Android-based tablets have seen a good traction and would continue to grow along with the relatively newer Windows-based tablets.

For the corporate and enterprise segment, tablet devices are an increasingly important part of their company's technology toolbox. Tablet devices, the fastest-growing segment of the PC market, present a convenient way for small business owners to get work done and stay in touch while they are on the road, or need to perform basic business tasks quickly.

Singh said, "The corporate / enterprise segments are focused on productivity solutions for their technology purchases. This segment is addressed by the SI or the Solution Provider. There is an enormous opportunity to place ‘tablet PC' centric solutions in the market today - to address the varied requirements of the market place." Adding to this, Kumar said, "We believe adoption from verticals such as enterprise, healthcare, education etc will prove to be a key driver for the growth of this segment."

In times to come, enterprises will see an increase in the adoption of Tablet PCs as part of the larger trend towards mobility. Arya said, "With regards to the future of these devices in the enterprise segments, there is a great scope of introduction of industry specific models, with different demands and requirements of each corporate."

Trends observed in India

· Tablets as a consumption device - With mobile and PC/Laptops being the two most dependable devices, tablets are increasingly becoming the third computing and consumption device.

· Mobile connected computing PC - With a compact, robust form factor added with seamless connectivity, tablets are fast being adopted across sectors.

· Innovative design - There is a continuous demand for responsive and better design features which will keep increasing as the new tablets are launched in the market and manufacturers improve upon the design features. Design will continue to be one of the USP.

· Innovation under the hood - The ‘Specs' continue to hold the fort as a key deciding factor for majority of the buyers. As competition heats up, the buyer will get a plethora of options to look at before buying a tablet.

· Application Landscape- Whether its social networking, news feeders, utilities, games or, e-books, the maturity of the application landscape and number of applications in the marketplace holds the key when it comes to tablets.

· Tablets as enterprise computing devices - Tablets are rapidly invading the enterprise space with more companies open to look at ‘BYOD' policies, their key USP's being the ease of use, supreme data accessibility from anywhere, multi-tenancy and the availability of enterprise class applications and easy configuration and implementation of enterprise level security policies. All of these contribute to a collaborative, productive and an efficient workplace.