New Delhi, March 7 2013:  Indians bought 3.11 million tablets in 2012, 1.09 million of them or over a third, in the last quarter alone,  finds a study by CyberMedia Research.Says Faisal Kawoosa, Lead Telecoms Analyst, CMR: “The year 2012 and particularly the last two quarters (3Q 2012 and 4Q 2012) were significant for the India Tablets market. We have seen the market for these devices grow substantially in 2012, particularly in the second half which made up for over 70% of the total sales.”Samsung, Micromax and Apple emerged market leaders with 72 vendors shipping  Tablets in India during the year. Android is the dominant OS, iOS following with Windows making inroads.
Samsung Note registers the inception of a new segment, ‘Phablets’ which In 2012,  constituted around 16.5% of total sales and this trend is expected to strengthen in the coming quarters. 

Clarifies Kawoosa: “At CMR we used to consider Tablet as a device with screen size of 5-inch or larger. But, with the definite emergence of ‘Phablets’ as a sustainable form factor in its own right, we will now consider only devices of 7-inch screen size and above as Tablets for the purpose of market analysis. Other parameters of the CMR definition of Tablet devices will remain unchanged. Moreover, we will continue to track and report ‘Phablets’ as a separate category of mobile device in the hands of individual consumers and enterprise users.”

Tarun Pathak, Telecoms Analyst, CMR says, “Samsung has been able to maintain the lead in the market only because of the first-mover advantage with the Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Note II. But this is not a sustainable strategy in the long term, as it has resulted in creation of the new ‘Phablet’ form factor, attracting competitors at both ends of the price spectrum to follow suit. With the entrance of Apple at the top end and multiple Chinese and Indian players at the entry-level, the Phablet segment is only going to see increased competition in the foreseeable future.”