Sleeping With The Write On: The Digital Reader

Saturday, 19 April 2014

The Digital Reader

Tesco is Now a Larger Tablet Maker Than RIM

Posted: 19 Apr 2014 12:05 PM PDT

When the UK retailer Tesco announced their Hudl tablet last September, no one really knew what to expect.

This tablet cost £119, which was not a bad price for a 7″ tablet which ran Android 4.2.2 on a quad-core 1.5GHz Rockchip CPU with 16GB Flash, 1GB RAM, and a decent screen resolution (1440 x 900). The Hudl was fairly popular with reviewers, and now we know that it is seeing some success with British consumers.

Tesco recently announced that they have sold 500,000 tablets since September. Based on the latest estimates from Gartner, this means Tesco is a bigger tablet maker than Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry Playbook.

That’s not bad for a first effort, and as a result of their success Tesco has confirmed that they are planning to launch a second model later this year. They have not released any details or specs on the new tablet, but there is a good chance that the new model will also be developed in partnership with Archos.

The Tesco Hudl was launched as a subsidized tablet along the lines of the Kindle Fire. In addition to Google Play, the Hudl also ships with Tesco’s BlinkBox service, which sell ebooks, music, and video. Consumers in the UK can also use the Hudl to order groceries from Tesco.

Tesco has not revealed whether the subsidized model is working for them, merely saying that “Blinkbox services also continue to grow “. Their most recent financial report does mention that online sales were up 11% while overall revenue fell 6%.

I doubt they would plan a second tablet unless they were at least breaking even on the first.

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