A tablet computer maker in China wins 900,000 orders from Thai government

"Last year, the largest tablet PC maker in domestic shipments was Newman, with a total shipment of nearly 1 million units, followed by e-persons and Malata tablets. Once Xicope took down the 900,000 units, it could become One of the largest tablet PC manufacturers in China."

In response to the recent unsuccessful Shenzhen Tablet PC manufacturer Shi Kopu getting a huge order from the Thai government, a senior executive at a large tablet computer company in China said. Earlier, according to the Thai media's Bangkok Post report, Sikop was defeated by several major manufacturers such as Huawei, TCL, and Haier, and their bids were particularly heated.

The Thai government is pursuing an unprecedented scale of "a student and a tablet computer" plan and plans to purchase a batch of tablet computers from China and distribute it to 860,000 primary school students. The Chinese companies that participated in the bidding included Huawei, Haier, TCL, and Xicoop. Their quoted prices were US$135, US$105, US$89 and US$81, respectively. All four manufacturers passed the test of the Thai government.

According to sources, the Thai government procurement team once favored the purchase of Huawei equipment, because Huawei's products have additional features and look better than others, but were intimidated by the $135 quote. The Thai government currently has a purchase budget of 1.9 billion baht, which is enough to buy 750,000 tablet computers. Therefore, the Thai government still needs to use its 2013 budget.

The panel provided by Xicoop is 7-inch size, equipped with 16G storage space, dual-core processor, 512M memory and Android3.2 operating system, with a capacity of 24,000 units per day. China Mobile’s China Union’s Secretary-General Daxuan said that the current 7-inch and 1G HZ tablet PCs have a retail price of more than 500 yuan in the market. Therefore, he estimated the price of US$81 a unit, and the company is still profitable.

The reason for the current flat-panel price drop is that domestic flat panel manufacturers generally adopt chip solutions introduced by vendors such as Rising Micro and Jun Zheng to reduce the cost of tablet PCs. “The Sicompe Tablet PC is using Rising Micro's solution.” Chen Feng, chief marketing officer of chipmaker Rising Micro, confirmed to reporters that he also said: “Hickop has no problem with ordering Thailand for USD 81.”

A salesman at Xicoop pointed out that the company's flat-panel ex-factory price is relatively high, so it is generally sold on the market and the flats supplied to Thailand will be redesigned.

China's current manufacturers of tablet computers mainly include Hanwang, Patriot, Lenovo, Huawei, and Malata. As the high-end market is firmly maintained by Apple, most of the domestic manufacturers compete in the low-end market, and their profits are low. Chinese manufacturers’ low-end tablet PCs are shipped from 400,000 to 500,000 units a month and half of them are exported.

"The bidding process also shows that the current competition for tablet computers is very fierce. Last year, more than 60 million tablet computers were sold globally, and the Apple family accounted for more than 40 million." Insiders pointed out to reporters: "Because of the height of the product With the lack of core competitiveness in homogeneity, the Chinese tablet market has only just started and it has been caught in a vicious circle of vicious price hikes."