Abstract

High-end White-box Models Threatened by Low-priced Tablets

After Amazon launched its 7-inch value-line tablets, leading branded vendors without content assets also entered this product segment, thereby intensifying competition in the market where Apple, Amazon, and Google are vying for bigger share. Judging from the value-line tablets currently available in the market, it is found that other branded vendors have avoided head-to-head competition with Amazon and Google. Amazon and Google both adopt a strategy focusing on high hardware specifications and low-pricing to cut into the 7-inch tablet market segment; however, other branded vendors, with their major concerns in making profits from hardware, mainly use relatively value-line hardware and low price to lure first-time tablet buyers.

Regarding the products launched by hardware branded vendors at the CES 2013, it can be seen that they remain focused on emerging markets. Tablets are now shipped mainly to North America and Europe. However, Chinese white-box vendors' shipment volume is growing year after year, with over 50% of them being shipped outside of China. Thus, the market opportunities brought by mobile computing devices continue to remain tremendous in emerging markets. Since branded vendors have built distribution channels in emerging markets for PC sales over the years, now with the popularization of tablets, they have developed tablets with specs similar to white-box ones and a price gap less than US$20. In addition, with higher brand awareness and after-sales services, branded vendors' tablets are expected to erode the market share of high-end white-box products.

Vendors Aim to Deliver Multi-Screen, Multi-Device Experiences in the Same Living Room

AIO PC is normally categorized as one type of desktop PCs, but the tablet-like AIO PC reshapes its image to put more emphasis on features relevant to a tablet, in the hope of distinguishing itself from conventional PCs in a bid to increase consumer acceptance. In addition, with Microsoft's promotional efforts for Windows 8, AIO PC vendors also put more focus on touch control and intuitive user interface, in order to prepare itself for the competition in the living room.

In the future, with a various type of transmission technologies such as NFC, WiHD, and WiGig constantly evolving, the interaction across devices will not be limited to content sharing based on multiple-device cloud streaming service pattern. Instead, more diverse interactions across various devices are expected. Particularly, TV will no longer play the central role in multimedia streaming and display; instead, the mutual support, interaction, and sharing across various devices will be increasingly seen. Under the trend where multiple devices coexist in the same living room, the importance and usage frequency of a tablet will increase. In addition, many leading brands have product strategy to focus on linkage and interaction between different devices. It is expected that the number of tablet-like AIO PCs or displays will be on the rise, which is expected to help boost the sluggish sales of PCs and displays.

X86 Camp Facing Headwinds in Mobile Device Market

In the mobile device market, over 90% of the market is dominated by ARM-based processers. Meanwhile, Intel and AMD in the X86 camp are attempting to snatch the market share from ARM camp. As AMD's market share in the PC market continues to fall behind Intel's, when the mobile computing market is coming into shape, other than low-power X86 processors, AMD has begun developing ARM-architecture processors as well. Although AMD's ARM processors are mainly used for cloud data centers, whether it will expand its product portfolio to cover mobile devices will have an impact on the scale and number of members of ARM and X86 camps. After selling its ARM-architecture product Xscale to Marvell, Intel has been devoted to developing X86 processors. However, with the market scale of mobile end-user devices continuing to expand, performance is not the only concern that a consumer cares about when buying a product. Whether Intel's processors can successfully meet the requirements of different OS platforms and whether Intel will resume the development of ARM-based products will be key issues to determine the future development of the mobile application processor industry.

Appendix

Glossary of Terms

List of Companies