According to Intel, tablet demand wil grow by 32% in Asia Pacific and Japan in 2014. Further, the countries such as India, Indonesia, Japan and Australia will account for 59% surge in demand. India alone will see demand for tablets growing by 18%. Another important fact pointed out by Intel during their roadshow in New Delhi on 12th June was that the demand for tablets is more in seven inches display and for smartphones, the people prefer 5 inches screen. Moreover, in emerging market like India, the tablets demand is more for Rs. 10,000 category especially in tier 2 and tier 3 cities where the concentration of tablets is less compared to the metropolian cities. Once infrastructure of braodband and the latest technologies of 4G are available in the major and small cities, the demand for tablets will explode in India.
Besides tablets, the consumers are also opting for 2 in 1devices depending on their requirements and the type of the work they want to accomplish. The two -in-one device can be used as a tablet as well as a laptop and in some devices, you can attach the separate key board also.
According to Sandeep Aurora, Director-Marketing and Market Development, Intel South Asia, “There are over 200 million middle-class potential customers in India alone for different screen sizes across different price points. We are seeing a lot of traction in the 7 to 9 inch space here. We are working with our OEM partners to bring Intel-based tablets starting Rs10, 000. We are also being aggressive in customizing our solutions for the enterprises as well as manifesto driven state governments.”
Keeping in view of above facts, Intel is focussing its strategies to come out with chipsets to meet the demand of affordable tablets and two-in-one devices in India and other emerging markets.
Based on microarchitecture “Silvermont,” (announced in May 2013), “Bay Trail”i s the next-generation 22nm quad-core Intel Atom SoC for tablets and 2 in 1 devices that provide a balance of performance, features and battery life.The “Bay Trail-M” and “Bay Trail-D” chipseta are for entry-level laptops, 2 in 1s, desktops and AIOs that will be branded Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron. At the roadshow event, Intel displayed the Baytrail-M based Lenovo Ideapad Flex 10 Laptop and a few Baytrail-T based devices like the AsusTransformer Book T-100, Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet and the HP Omni10.
Intel also talked about the upcoming 2.13GHz Intel Atom processor Z3480 (“Merrifield”) that offers the ideal combination of fast, smart performance and long battery life for Android smartphones and tablets. The 64-bit ready SoC delivers best-in-class compute performance for the mainstream and performance segments, and solidly outperforms the competition in compute-intensive application, web application and light media editing performance. Merrifield also delivers best-in-class battery life.
Intel also announced about its upcoming next-generation 64-bit Intel Atom processor, code-named “Moorefield”. This procesor is expected to be available second half of this year. Building on the Merrifield feature set, Moorefield adds two additional Intel architecture (IA) cores for up to 2.3GHz of compute performance, an enhanced GPU and support for faster memory. Moorefield is optimized for Intel’s 2014 LTE platform, the Intel XMM 7260, which the company introduced at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year.
At the recently concluded Computex event in Taipei, Intel had announced that 130 new Intel based Android and Windows tablets are debuting in the market from global OEMs and ODMs this year. Intel has also unveiled the 14nm Intel Core M Processor for Fanless 2 in 1 Designs which will be the first 14nm product in market in the second half of this year. For entry level smartphones and tablets, Intel is also bringing out dual-core SoFIA range of processors in the fourth quarter and in the first half of 2015.
Besides focussing its attention to tablets, Intel is also working hard on its plans to bring out chipsets for the smartphones segment, where its presence is negligible at the moment. Intel is late entrant in smartphone field and yet is discussing behind the scenes with 5 to 6 top smartphone players.
