Reference Auto

The tablet war is hotting up: After Apple’s iPad2 and Samsung’s Galaxy Pad, now HTC is hoping to make it big in the Indian market with its ‘Flyer’, which is slated to be launched in the country in the next few weeks.

“HTC’s Flyer will be launched soon, may be within this month,” HTC Corporation president (South Asia) Lennard Hoornik said.

The seven-inch touch screen Flyer tablet comes with a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It has 1 GB of RAM and an in-built memory of 16 GB along with a 5 megapixel camera.

The company has not revealed the price as yet but it will be “competitively priced” to give HTC’s competitors a reason to worry.

Almost at the same time, BlackBerry is expected to launch its Playbook, the price of which has not been announced yet.

So, pricing and features could play a big part in India’s nascent tablet market with Apple iPad2 being priced around Rs 30,000 and Samsung Galaxy at Rs 26,000.

Even though both HTC and BlackBerry will not have first-mover advantage over Samsung and Apple (iPad2), the two new tablet makers could shore up sales if price is kept low and the gadgets are feature-rich.

But BlackBerry has catered to India’s premium category and, it is unlikely that it will make its product for the low-end or mid categories. It could, in fact, price its tablet on par with Apple’s.

But there is also speculation that the price of the PlayBook in India could range between Rs 22,000 and Rs 32,000, based on the storage capacity, beginning from 16 GB to 64 GB. In the international market, the PlayBook comes for $499, $599 and $699 for 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB variants.

HTC, on the other hand, had brought a slew of smartphones into India but has found few takers for its handsets. It will have to go back to the drawing board to see how it can woo customers, if it wants to see its Flyer succeed in India.

Since the roll-out of Apple’s iPad2, the tablet market is witnessing stiff competition, with new contenders launching their devices. A tablet PC, which is smaller in size compared to even a laptop, functions almost like a personal computer.

Apple’s rival Dell had rolled out the Streak in India, while domestic handset makers such as Spice and Olive have also launched similar devices at much lower prices.

It is believed that the tablets market in India could hot up and reach a whopping one million in just one year, especially after the launch of 3G.

So, although Apple (with its brandname in tablets market) and Samsung (with its economic pricing) are likely to lead in the country’s tablet war, BlackBerry and HTC will have to launch some unique marketing initiatives if they want to see sales of the Notebook and Flyer soar in this one-million unit market.