Apple Inc, is planning to introduce a cheaper and smaller iPad by end of the year to compete with Google Inc’s Nexus 7 and Microsoft Corp’s recent tablet Surface. This will help Apple to maintain its dominance in the crowded tablet market, two people said with knowledge on this matter.
This budget iPad will have smaller screen measuring diagonally 7 to 8 inches. The original iPad has a 9.7-inch display. This planned iPad won’t be getting the high resolution retina displays which are featured on the current latest iPads that was launched in March. This new iPad will be priced similar to Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire, Amazon’s tablet, both of these tablets sports 7-inch displays and costs $199, according to two people who don’t who wanted to be anonymous.
This is can have a detrimental effect on Google and Amazon’s ambitions to gain market share in the highly competitive tablet market already dominated by Apple’s iPad added Shaw Wu, an analyst working for Sterne Agee & Leach. Since its inception in April 2010, the iPad has dominated the landscape with revenues estimated over $66.4 billion this year, predicted Display Search. As to Gartner Inc, Apple has 61 percent market share. This will be a worse nightmare for competitors. Apple has the ball in the court, Wu said.
Trudy Muller, Apple’s spokeswoman, refused to comment on the matter.
