Johannesburg, 04 Jul 2011
Chinese tech giant Huawei is bringing down the prices of tablet PCs, to a point where they are accessible to the average consumer, it claims.
This emerged last week when the company officially unveiled its Ideos S7 tablet to the South African market.
Speaking at the event, Leo Wang, Huawei's MD for Eastern and Southern Africa region, acknowledged that the company had made a late entry into the smart device market.
However, he argued that because Huawei has a network background, the company is able to provide not only the network solutions, but device solutions as well.
Huawei believes the Ideos S7 tablet is a perfect balance between price and quality.
James Munn, VP of business development for Sub-Sahara Africa atQualcomm, adds that the company's Snapdragon processors, which powers the Ideos S7, ensures the tablet offers “mobile processing performance, powerful multimedia, wireless connectivity and power efficiency”.
Huawei's tablet is the cheapest tablet offering WiFi and 3G, according to World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck, who notes that the Ideos S7 offers the best value for money in the tablet market.
Goldstuck points out that since the Ideos S7 costs the same as a first-generation iPad, initially he did not think it would be able to compete for serious market share.
However, he adds that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7-inch, which has a far sharper screen, costs 50% more.
Goldstuck says Huawei's strategy of not only marketing its tablet, but its brand as well, would be crucial to the success of its device.
Ryan Smit, digital lifestyle research manager of BMI-TechKnowledge, agrees that marketing will be vital to the local success of the Huawei tablet. He adds that the Ideos' success will also depend on how much promotion the service providers do for the device.
Smit further argues that while the tablet market is crowded internationally, this is not the case locally.
Huawai's Ideos S7 is an entry-level tablet that will retail between R3 200 and R3 600. It is 12.5mm thick, weighs 450g, and can be controlled in one hand. It also features 3G and WiFi and operates on Android.
It also comes with a 2200mAh battery, which Huawei says will last roughly five hours under heavy usage. It features a variety of preloaded applications and supports a range of music files.
According to Liza de Wet, marketing director for Huawei Technologies SA, the Ideos S7 is the first of a range of products Huawei will introduce to the South African market.
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