Vodafone dips its toe into own-brand tablet market
Two devices to ship in Germany first, then other European territories, but pricing will be critical
Published: 6 September, 2011
READ MORE: Germany | Vodafone Group | Tablet
It has been hard enough for established device brands to eat into the iPad's dominance of the nascent tablet market. Carrier branded products have been virtually invisible, despite some launches from operators like Telstra in Australia. That is not stopping Vodafone having a stab at imposing its name and user experience on the new form factor, and the company's German unit showed off two own-label tablets at the IFA consumer electronics trade show in Berlin this week.
The products will ship in Germany in November, though pricing and other details were not revealed, nor dates for other Vodafone units to get the devices - though an insider confirmed that this would be an international launch, expected to hit several major European markets during the pre-Christmas buying season. The price will be the critical factor. Vodafone will need to make the tablets highly affordable to have a chance of denting the iPad, or at least to subsidize them heavily. Recent events - the fire sale of the HP TouchPad and discounting of the RIM PlayBook - have shown that non-Apple slates do sell, but only at a lower price tag.
And this will be even more important for a cellco - carrier branded gadgets usually succeed in the lower end of the market, but have limited brand credibility for premium users. Previous attempts by operators to badge high end smartphones or other products such as netbooks have generally been unsuccessful outside parts of Asia. However, major operators like Vodafone know they need to retain a strong influence over new mobile devices and ensure they remain key distribution channels for them, or risk losing their brand relationship with consumers.
The first Vodafone slates are called the Smart Tab 7 and Smart Tab 10, adopting the most popular combination of screen sizes - as seen at Samsung - and running Android Honeycomb. They both feature a 1.2GHz processor and 1Gbyte of on-board memory, with 16Gbytes of storage, expandable using microSD cards. There will be connectivity via 14.4Mbps HSPA and Wi-Fi.
Last week, Vodafone said it would sell the iPad 2 in its German, Dutch and Italian stores, while Deutsche Telekom will do the same in Germany, Austria, Greece, Poland and the Netherlands. Like US carriers such as AT&T, European majors are aiming to expand the range of devices they offer and some will even subsidize tablets to boost interest in the 3G, rather than the Wi-Fi only, models. However, the carriers will need to adapt their data pricing models if they want to make cellular tablets attractive, in particular offering data 'buckets' which can be shared flexibly between several gadgets, rather than forcing consumers to purchase additional data plans.
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