MIC sees low-price tablets to lead MediaTek and Chinese AP Suppliers to cut into AP Market with the price reduction promotion trend.

According to Taiwan's MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute), an ICT industry research institute based in Taipei, Taiwanese tablet application processor shipment volume saw a 16.3% sequential decline.

MIC expects that after several low-cost tablets will be massively released with screen sizes between 7- to 9-inches, the Taiwanese tablet application processor market volume is predicted to increase to around 30.14 million units in the third quarter of 2013.

Joan Yang, Senior Industry Analyst, Information System, MIC says "In the second half of 2013, after several new low-cost Windows 8/RT tablets made their first debut at Computex 2013, branded vendors have begun taking aggressive stance toward low-cost tablet deployments following two consecutive quarters of strong sales."

"It is observed that other than PC branded vendors, mobile phone branded vendors also have sought to make a comeback to the tablet market."

MIC finds that aside from white-box tablets that aim to tap consumer demand for low-price options, the competition among branded vendors in the low-cost tablet segment is also intensifying. Taking the cost into consideration, some vendors have adopted entry-level processors developed by Samsung and Freescale whereas the share of branded tablets with MediaTek's solutions is growing significantly as well. Owing to the accumulated experiences in developing white-box tablets, Chinese branded vendors like Allwinner and Rockchips have begun setting foot in developing the branded tablets.

Looking at the tablet market share by technology type, the share of tablets with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity remained intact in the first quarter of 2013. MIC predicts that the share of tablets with integrated chips will rise steadily, thereby pushing the shipment share of 3G/4G chips upward.

Chinese AP suppliers have been actively approaching tablet vendors while some have entered the trial run phase for their jointly developed products. "It is expected that the impact of low-price trend on the overall tablet supply chain will become more pronounced" noted Joan Yang.

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About MIC

Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC), based in Taipei, Taiwan, was founded in 1987. MIC is Taiwan's premier IT industry research and consulting firm providing intelligence, in-depth analysis, and strategic consulting services on global IT product and technology trends, focusing on markets and industries in Asia-Pacific. MIC is part of the Institute for Information Industry. https://mic.iii.org.tw/english