Compal president pessimistic about non-Apple tablet shipments in 2011

Thursday, September 2, 2010 · 5:55 pm · 5 Comments

“Compal Electronics president Ray Chen at a company investors conference on September 1, commented that he expects shipments of non-Apple tablet PCs to not exceed 15 million units in 2011 and players will quickly quit after finding out the market is not as easy as they expect,” Yen-Shyang Hwang, Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai report for DigiTimes.

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“Chen expects the shipments of non-Apple tablet PCs to be around 10-12 million, and said that even if the company is capable of manufacturing one-fifth of the total shipments, the products are unlikely to contribute significantly to revenues,” Hwang, Chen and Tsai report. “Chen also noted that Wintel netbook sales have recently been devoured seriously by tablet PCs [read: Apple iPads.]“

Hwang, Chen and Tsai report, “Sources from component makers revealed that Compal is currently shipping a small volume of white-box tablet PCs and is cooperating with Acer, Dell and Lenovo for their tablet PC models. Compal is also aggressively trying to land iPad orders from Apple.”

Read more int he full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Tay" for the heads up.]

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5 Comments

KingMel

Thursday, September 2, 2010 - 6:59 pm · Reply

“Compal is also aggressively trying to land iPad orders from Apple.”

Probably for two reasons. First, it makes sense from a business standpoint. Apple will contract for many millions of the first generation iPad and even larger numbers of the second and third generation iPads. Second, wouldn’t it be handy for Compal to have the state of the art Apple tablet computer assembled in house from which to base its line of “white-box tablet PCs” to sell to Acer, Dell, and Lenovo? You could run the same line in third shift, but with a different processor and label…

Spark

Thursday, September 2, 2010 - 7:00 pm · Reply

Sounds like Mr. Chen is attempting to keep the field limited to help his tablet competitor more relevant. I don’t think his advice is going to keep others from trying.

John E

Thursday, September 2, 2010 - 7:22 pm · Reply

we are going to see a flood of android tablets in various sizes, various specs/features, and various price points, from multiple OEM’s (and telcos even), resulting in various compatibility issues of many kinds. in other words, huge fragmentation. and that’s not taking android 3.x into account yet.

consumers will be confused by all this (even tho the droid geeks will revel in it), whereas sticking with the “just works” iPad will be the safe choice. but even worse, no single android tablet will get enough sales alone to get long term traction in the market and actually make a profit.

so this guy Chen is being smart not to jump into it. unlike smartphones, no one “needs” a tablet and the iPad will be the simplest to enjoy. plus next year’s iPad 2 will add some more features (a retina display? FaceTime?) that will keep it abrest of the competition hardware-wise. the outcome: the iPad will keep at least 50% of the market for a long time.

blucaso

Thursday, September 2, 2010 - 9:23 pm · Reply

In other news, he expects DVD sales to be down this year, as well as Cassette Tape sales.

DUH!

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 9:34 am · Reply

I say let then make Android based Tables.. It just farther fragments the Google Android platform that it is not sustainable in the long run. One of the main reasons that Linux can’t compete with Windows is serious fragmentation issue. Android is follow right along in that proud Linux tradition of seriously fragmented OS base so, No one trusts Linux except for the geeks. Android is now almost as fragmented as all the different Linux Distros combined. No one is responsible (except the devices owner) for keeping an Android device updated and secure. The owner can only do that if 1) the OS developer provides proper security update as soon as issues are discovered. Which Google does not do because they are busy with the next release. The Device maker does not because Google does not maintain proper OS control and support from version to version so, Google as pushed it off to the hardware maker who likely doesn’t have the talent or resources to do it. 2) the Device’s owner is in the end held to the fire and it is up the the owner to create and install their own security patches. So, everyone that owns an Android phone better be one hellava programmer. Oh and don’t forget that you’ll need the source code for the Android OS version, the hardware makers changes, additions and subtractions to the Base Android code. By the way don’t forget you also need the source code for all the Applications too.

Like they always say you can’t teach an old stupid dog new tricks. Android is just that an old stupid dog named Linux that will forever be consigned to the world of nerd geeks that live in their parents basement or attic and work pointless IT jobs with no future and no advancement for them. This is and will always be the typical Android User, and it’s not cool and it’s not hip, it’s the typical hardcore Linux user.