Recently, Tom Mainelli, research director, Tablets, at IDC, said: “New product launches from top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season.”
HP, the largest personal-computer maker, exited the consumer tablet market in 2011 when it killed its TouchPad device running on the WebOS operating system from its Palm unit.
In the consumer-tablet market, HP faces stiff competition from rivals including Amazon.com which sells the 7-inch Kindle Fire for $159 and Google itself, which sells the Nexus 7 for $199.
Apple’s iPad and iPad Mini, which has a 7.9-inch screen and starts at $329, controlled a 44 percent share of global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter of last year, according to IDC.
Samsung’s tablets, with a 15-percent global share, start at $200 with the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note devices.
The Slate features a dual-core 1.6 gigahertz processor from ARM Holdings (ARM), eight gigabytes of memory, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, according to a statement by the company. The device will be offered in overseas markets later this year.
Meanwhile, HP has reported 6 percent decrease in revenues at $28.4 billion in the first quarter. HP’s net income declined 16 percent to $1.2 billion. It’s the sixth consecutive quarter that HP’s revenue has dropped from the previous year.
