Introduction:

Consumer electronics industry is highly competitive, dynamic and development oriented.

Manufacturers need to bring differentiated product in order to remain competitive. A present trend
towards achieving the same is to combine the functionality of many products in to one. Therefore
there is a shift of consumers towards mobile devices like Smartphones, Tablets.
Tablets and Its Usage in Consumer Electronics:
A tablet is a mobile computing device larger than a smart-phone, which is relatively thin and has a
touch screen interface. The most popular activities of tablets includes internet usage like checking
email, online shopping, social networking and playing games, watching full length videos, writing,
reading.
Present Scenario of Tablet in Consumer Electronics Industry:
Tablets have unique design combining the functionality of many products which attracted the
electronic consumer. It is forecasted by CEA that Unit sales of tablets are projected to reach 89.3
million this year, up from 77.4 million in 2013. Revenues for tablets will reach $27.3 billion this year,
up by three percent. 2
Sales of tablets are increasing day by day and In a short amount of time, mobile connected devices
have become ingrained and indispensable in consumers lives, said Steve Koenig, CEAs director of
industry analysis. The market for these products, now found in millions of households, is
exceptionally competitive, naturally resulting in slowed revenue growth. Yet we find ourselves at an
interesting inflection point in technology, as these same products are creating opportunities and
growth across several other categories in the industry.1
Apple Present position in Tablets:
The iPad tends to be more stable and easier to use than other tablets. The biggest advantage of
iPhone/iPad is that it has the Apple App Store on its side, which has a long list of downloadable apps.
The Apple App Store currently has over 750,000 applications available for download with about
300,000 designed specifically for the iPad and the rest capable of running in compatibility modes.
Apple approves each app individually prior to its release, making it harder for malware/bugs to get
onto their device.
iOS based Apple tablets held 38.81% market share whereas android based tablets market share is
52.57%. 3. Apple has highest 44% market share whereas its potential competitor Samsung has 25%
and others have 31%. Cost of Apple iPad product is high as compared to his competitors prices [Ref].
Scenario of Tablet as standalone product in Consumer Electronics Industry for next 10 years:
In future, Tablets will play an increasingly critical role at work, Schools, Colleges, and Business etc .
They will find their way into the office either through direct purchasing by organisations or through
bring your own device programmes for staff. Tablets will be used as a substitute for PCs. Similarly
schools, college management are also inclined towards adopting the tablet in place of traditional note
books.

Businessmen, students, employees generally could not have enough time to sit at home and watch
Television. Therefore future Tablet must have next generation Television along with projector
facilities. It also must have DTH antenna so that the live television can be watched by consumers
without buffering streaming. In future; Foldable Tablets can be used as substitute for smart phones. It
would be easy to carry and usable at any place.
Further study reveals that, Paper Tablets is developed by Queens University at Canada. Researcher
have developed a revolutionary tablet screen as thin as a sheet of paper that can be twisted and
dropped out without damages and the same can replace laptops within 5 years. [Ref]
Remote display: Future of tablets, according to Amzon No batteries, No processor all streaming.
Amazon has filed a patent for a tablet without processors, batteries; remote display would pull power
and data wirelessly. The screen will communicate wirelessly with a primary station from where he
took both the power and the date to be displayed. [Ref]

Apple Position in Tablet for next decades:

Apple is known for Innovation, brand name, simplicity, user-friendly products. In order to launch
tablets as standalone product, Apple has to incorporate various features in iPads. Apple position will
be very low due to intense competition, threat of substitute products, high bargaining power of buyers,
threats of new entrant in the market, availability of complementary.
1. Threats of New Entrant: Barrier to entry is low because product is undifferentiated. Various
Televisions, media Player Company like Sony, Phillips, and Videocon will enter in to the tablet
manufacturing market. Further switching cost is also low.
2. Bargaining power of Suppliers: Many suppliers are available for supply of memory chip, cards,
displays, touch pad and other electronics items etc. except Processor Manufacturing and Operating.
Intel and
3. Bargaining power of buyers: Bargaining power of buyers will be high as various manufacturing
companies would be available
4. Substitute
5. Rivalry

Suggestion to Tim Cook:

iPad tablet, Multitasking is absent i.e. it cant interact with multiple apps at the same time while other
tablets running on Android OS have true multitasking i.e. when you are using one application the
other applications can run in the background.

While it is great that each app is checked by Apple for approval prior to its release into the app store
some useful apps are locked out in the process.
The iPad is also unable to increase its storage capacity through flash drives, which means when it
goes out of storage space, it is really out of space.
Another big weakness for the iPad is that Flash or Shockwave videos cannot be run on it though this
has become less of a concern as more and more websites are using Apple-compatible HTML5
nowadays.

The iPad is also more expensive than other tablets. The price of iPad was a strong selling point when
it was first launched. But now you can get a current generation popular Android tablet with 7-inch
screen and plenty of processing power at a significantly lower price than that of iPad Mini

1. https://www.ce.org/News/News-Releases/Press-Releases/2013-PressReleases/CE-Industry-Revenues-to-Reach-Record-High-of-$208.aspx
2. http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/combinedsmartphone-and-tablet-factory-revenue-exceed-entire
3. https://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?
qprid=8&qpcustomd=1
Back up:
http://www.eulerhermes.com/mediacenter/Lists/mediacenterdocuments/Industry-Report-Consumer-Electronics-Dec14.pdf