China Quickly Ramping White-Box Tablet Production

By Douglas Perry
published

China is ready to flood the tablet market with white-box products in 2012.

According to Digitimes, the production capacity is now at about 3 million units per month, with white-box companies expected to ship a total of more than 50 million units per month. In comparison, Apple shipped just under 40.5 million iPads in 2011, while total tablet shipments were about 66.9 million, according to Strategy Analytics.

Apparently the manufacturing frenzy was set off by the availability for Android 4 as "hundreds of small- and medium-size businesses have entered the development and production of tablet PCs on an OEM, ODM or OBM basis" in China's Guangdong province alone, Digitimes said.

However, most tablets appear to be targeting emerging markets with 7-, 8-, 9.7- and 10.1-inch screen sizes with a very basic feature and low cost set. Prices for a 10.1-inch tablet with 1024 by 600 pixel screen resolution and 4 GB storage are estimated to cost somewhere between $100 and $110.

20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • killerclick
    Now this is a race to the bottom, but I suppose this is better than not having a tablet at all.
    Reply
  • joytech22
    Mmm no thanks.. I'll stick to reputable vendors.

    For the emerging ultra-cheap ultra-low sections of the market it'll be great but I've come to expect a certain standard for feature sets and build quality.

    That standard has a minimum acceptable level of $180 (Kogan Agora range is my starting point)

    It is just my opinion though, I mean everyone has a limit before things start getting too out of hand for the price.
    Reply
  • It's like the $30 DVD players at Walmart.
    Reply
  • can it play doom?
    Reply
  • belardo
    They sell SONY branded DVD players at Walmart for $30. Ah, remember when only PURE junk brands were $30? Guess they cant quite make them for $10?

    These are going to be pure-crap tablets, which will sell well in China and other 3rd world country where buying a $400 iPad or Android tablet is 1-6 months worth of pay. As some people may already notice, in the USA we already have some $100 tablets sold in Walgreen's / CVS / Biglots / Newegg running Android 1.6~2.x with crappy screens. Even Lenovo sells a $170 7" 2.3 Android device.

    At newegg, there are 145 Android tablets available with these versions of the OS (large amounts)
    2.2 = 14 models (Froyo)
    2.3 = 23 models
    3.x = 44 models (honeycomb) ($100~400)
    4.0 = 59 models (ICS) $100~600

    Blackberry = 2
    Windows7Pro tablets = 21 $600~3000 (most are in the $1200~1600 price range)
    Anything below $1200 is an ATOM powered tablet. Yet, MS blames them for not creating the tablet market??
    Reply
  • noblerabbit
    why doesn't the western world form an embargo to deny %99 of chinese made over produced walmart junk that doesn't serve any real purpose? we have too much of their stuff that is making people sick, and making the chinese millionaires grow in record numbers that are sweeping all jobs, real-estate from under your feet! keep buying crap you don't need from walmart, sheeple.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Im getting sick of it too. Its not just that the stuff is lower-cost, but the QUALITY is sub-standard. Everything... sunglasses that are now crap, yet costs the same. Bicycle wheels... now crap, yet costs the same. Talked to a guy at the shop, yep... they don't make wheels like they used to. The $50 wheels are not as well made as they used to be, so they break and bend easier. I have to buy a $150 wheel to have the quality of the $50 wheels from 5 years ago.

    Noblerabbit: The USA cannot quite do that so easily. We do need more tarifs, but also we need to demand more stuff from the USA. but you see... (A) we have less money to spend (B) manufacturing factories are no longer here in the USA... (C) we have people who hate unions, so they want us to have the same cheap labor as in China? We cannot compete against that. We'd have to reduce our wages to $2 an hour or make China raise their min. wage. (thats not going to happen).
    Reply
  • belardo
    A reason why Android tablets are really going to be going up a notch is because of what MS just did to ALL of their OEM partners with their MS-branded tablet.

    I think HP is going to have an Android tablet soon too.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    You get what you pay for, if you buy cheap, you get cheap and it shows.
    Reply
  • killerclick
    noblerabbitwhy doesn't the western world form an embargo to deny %99 of chinese made over produced walmart junk that doesn't serve any real purpose?
    The purpose of a product is to be sold, and there are no bad products, only bad prices.
    Reply