Production of off-label tablets on the rise in China
16 Apr 2012
Small and mid-sized computer makers in China are ratcheting up production of off-label tablets that run on Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich mobile operating system, recent reports from Asian media sources say.
According to market researcher eMedia Asia, China-based manufacturers of the white-label tablets were now shipping 3 million units a month as against 1 million units per month over the course of 2011.
The research firm expects the total consumer tablet market to be around 50 million units shipments in 2012.
According to a report in DigiTimes on Friday, China-based OEMs were producing tablets in a number of different sizes, with 7-inch, 8-inch, 9.7-inch, and 10.1-inch devices available to buyers who were mainly located in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America markets.
The mature consumer tablet markets of North America and Europe are mostly dominated by Apple's iPad and looked to remain so throughout 2012, various reports from industry research firms said.
However, emerging markets in Asia and other parts of the world had proven more accessible to white-box computer makers, like the "hundreds of small- and medium-sized businesses [which] have entered the development and production of tablet PCs on an OEM, ODM or OBM basis" in China's Guangdong province, DigiTimes reported.
