Alcatel eyes $10 million revenue from tablet PC segment

NEW DELHI: Smartphone maker Alcatel aims to garner USD 10 million revenue from its portfolio of tablet PCs, a segment where it hopes to corner 10 per cent market share by the end of this year.

The company has recently launched three new tablet PCs, the latest one being the 'A3 10'. These will compete against products from the stables of Datawind, Samsung and Micromax, among others.

"Tablet is a fairly new category for us. While we had products in the international market, we have just started expanding into the Indian market. We hope to exit 2017 with 10 per cent market share," Praveen Valecha, Regional Director at Alcatel India told PTI.

He added that the company expects the tablet PC vertical will clock revenues of about USD 10 million in this calendar year.

According to research firm CMR, sales of tablet PCs in India declined 16 per cent year-on-year to around 7.6 lakh units in the January-March 2017 quarter.

Compared to the previous October-December quarter, it was lower by 6 per cent.

Datawind continued to hold the top spot with 34 per cent market share, followed by iBall with 16 per cent share, the report said. Samsung had 15 per cent share, while homegrown Micromax had 8 per cent share.

Globally too, tablet PC sales have been declining (8.5 per cent in March quarter to 36.2 million units) given higher consumer preference for smartphones.

"The tablet PC market has shrunk mainly because there were no major devices in the Indian market. Also, many low- value tabs spoilt customer experience. Besides, there were factors like demonetisation and GST. But, we expect the market to revive by Diwali," Valecha said.

He added that the company will also launch two more devices in the Indian market to cash in on the category.

Alcatel's A3, priced at Rs 9,999, features 10-inch display, 1.1 GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage (expandable up to 128GB), 5MP rear and 2MP front camera and 4,600 mAh battery.