LG Mobiles is planning to bring its yet-to-be-globally-launched 3D tablet to India in June.
LG Mobiles is planning to bring its yet-to-be-globally-launched 3D tablet to India in June, a senior executive in the company said. It will compete with Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Apple's iPad and is likely to be priced between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000.
Vishal Chopra, LG Electronics business head for mobile communications, said the tablet could be priced lower than Rs 30,000 depending on currency valuation and import duties at the time of the launch. "I will be in a better position to say (about price clarity) around last week of May," he added.
First unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, the tablet is the only one in the industry having 3D display capabilities. The Samsung general manager for South West Asia, Ruchika Batra, did not reveal sales figures but said that the Galaxy Tab's positive growth has also encouraged it to launch more models around Diwali. World over, media tablet spending is projected to more than triple to $29.4 billion this year and increase at an average rate of 52% each year through 2015, according to research agency Gartner.
However, Indian market may be slow to respond . "In a price sensitive market like India , current tablet prices are too high for the mass adoption. If technology providers are able to get the price below . 10,000-12 ,000 with acceptable features, we will see much wider acceptance of these devices," says Gartner's principal analyst Vishal Tripathi.
This price sensitivity forced Samsung to lower the price of Galaxy Tab from Rs 38,000 to Rs 29,299 when iPad was launched for around Rs 28,000 in January. In April, the price has dropped to Rs 27,390. Local handset makers, such as Micromax Mobiles, Lava Mobiles and Olive Telecom and Chinese manufacturers such as G'Five and HTC, are also launching their tablets at competitive prices.
Despite the imminent price wars, Optimus Pad will be one of the key product launches for LG Mobiles this year. The company feels that even sales of up to 2,000 tablets a month can yield larger revenue and better profitability. "It is also better for the brand image," Chopra added. As it aims to garner Rs 3,000 crore revenues by the year-end up from Rs 2,000 crore in 2010.
LG also plans to introduce a couple of sub-Rs 10,000 smartphones. Chopra said prices could fall to around Rs 7,000 in the future as the company begins manufacturing smartphones from its factory in Pune this month. About 40% of LG's handset launches this calendar year will involve smartphones, a strategy that is followed by handset major Nokia. Nokia India's managing director D Shivakumar had earlier said that the company would have a very big share of the smartphone market that was doubling every year.