14 DAY TRIAL // Brand vendors have really hoped that the release of Windows 8.1 will boost their tablet sales to some degree. Manufacturers have been trying to attract customers by offering a combo of attractive price ranges and powerful specifications, but to no avail, it appears.
New information provided by DigiTimes presents a bleak scenario. According to them, channel retailers will see their sales for the month of October slip 20-30% below their initial expectations.
Customers seem to be focusing their attention on Android models, rather than on the freshly unveiled Windows 8.1 offerings. Oddly enough, even the PC models seem to represent a threat to tablets running Microsoft’s latest.
The problem is that the Android ecosystem offers an extremely varied sea of choice. For example, companies like Tesco and Argos, which had nothing to do with tablet manufacturing before releasing budget slate offerings, apparently managed to attract a lot of customers.
The Tesco Hudl actually received some pretty favorable reviews and can be purchased for $191 / €139. Most recently, Carphone Warehouse introduced the cheapest tablet to be seen on the market at $79 / €57.
Even if brand vendors continue to price their Windows slates affordably, Android and PC vendors retaliate and cut prices even more. Asus, for example, pushed out its Transformer Book T100, available in two models. The 32GB one is retailing for $349 / €255, while the 64GB one comes for $399 / €291.
Sources claim that history is repeating itself, as previous Windows-based tablet models have been struggling with the same fate.
At the moment, there’s still no word about Windows 8.1 models getting any price cuts, but as the holiday season approaches and the gifting period begins, shoppers might start to see retailers slash up to 20% off Windows 8.1 tablet price tags.
Windows 8.1 was officially unveiled on October 18 and since then several brand manufacturers have released slates running the much-hyped operating system.