China-based Huawei, ZTE to step into tablet market, say sources

While international smartphone players including LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, RIM and Nokia have apparently retreated from the tablet PC market in order to focus on their core businesses, China-based vendors Huawei Technologies and ZTE have expressed great interest in launching tablets in addition to smartphones, according to industry sources.

Huawei and ZTE plan to extend their global marketing from smartphones to tablets through cooperation with mobile telecom carriers around the world and to launch entry-level Android-based models initially and Windows Phone 8 models later, the sources indicated.

The launch of tablet PCs by smartphone vendors reached a peak in 2011, including the Xoom from Motorola, the Optimus Pad from LG, the Flyer and Jetstream from HTC, and the Playbook from RIM.

But most vendors, with the exception of Samsung Electronics, have slowed or even stopped the development of new tablets in the wake of slow sales of their models, while Apple has continued to maintain its leadership in the segment.

LG has withdrawn from the table PC market temporarily; Motorola has halted plans to launch new tablets due to development strategy at Google; and RIM is now focusing on its new platform, the BlackBerry 10.

Nokia will obviously focus on the development of Windows Phone 8-based smartphones, since its software partner Microsoft has already released its own-brand Surface tablet, and additional models are expected to be rolled out by Microsoft's other hardware partners.

Having not released any new tablet in one year, HTC is scheduled to launch its new tablet, the HTC Flyer 2, in the fourth quarter of 2012, revealed the sources, but adding that HTC is expected to continue to give priority to the development of new smartphones in order to shore up its declining market share.


Source : digitimes