South Africa’s largest independent telecommunications solutions provider, Nashua Mobile believes that the rapidly growing tablet computer market could spark new demand for mobile data that will handsomely benefit South African cellular operators and service providers, a senior official has said.
Nashua Mobile Executive Head for Marketing, Tim Walter, said the tablet computer market surge would start showing in the next few months as mobile data demand was increasing.
Walter said the tablet market in South Africa could be expected to show sharp growth throughout the rest of the year as new tablet products arrived on the scene.
“The runaway success of the iPad and the iPad 2 in the South African market indicates that there is a real hunger among local consumers and business users for tablet computers with cellular data connections.
“Apple’s local distribution and retail partner sold hundreds of iPad 2 units within hours of the product hitting the shelves on April 29,” Walter said. “Unusually for a computer product launch in South Africa, people were queuing for the iPad 2 before stores even opened on that day.”
He cited the most popular models of the iPad 2 as those with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, saying they sold out in many stores within the space of a few hours.
“That’s just a taste of the growth to come from the tablet market,” Walter said.
He said the growing demand would create new opportunities for mobile operators and service providers to sell data SIM cards into the market.
Based on Gartner forecasts, Walter said the annual global tablet shipments would jump from less than 18 million in 2010 to 294 million in 2015 arguing that the growth was cannibalizing sales of PCs and notebooks as end-users started to consume more of their media on the run from their tablet computers rather than from their desktops and notebooks.
Walter said the tablet market could be expected to enjoy strong growth in the coming months, with new Android tablets from Motorola arriving in South Africa as well as the launch of the BlackBerry PlayBook, which took place on Tuesday.
“Users have only a few tablet options to choose from right now – basically, it’s the Apple iPad or Samsung’s Android-based Galaxy Tab.
“But that picture is changing fast. With more choice from June onwards, more competition and more marketing, we can expect to see the tablet market really take off.
“Since so many tablets ship with integrated 3G connectivity, this will be good news for mobile operators, opening up a whole new market for them to address,” said Walter.
He said some of the growth would come at the expense of cellular data usage on smartphones and notebooks insisting that much of it would be new.
Walter said end-users would begin to devour more cellular data as they use their tablets to browse the Web, send and receive emails, read magazines and books, play online games, watch video and use business applications.
By Savious Kwinika
