Google joins fray for a slice of Indian tablet market

Company brings its Nexus 7 tab to India

About 10 months after it launched its Android-base tablet, Nexus 7 in the US, Google has finally brought the device for the Indian consumers.

Close on the heels of the visit of its chairman Eric Schmidt to India last week, the California-headquartered company has added a device section to its virtual marketplace, Google Play in India. To begin with, the company has started offering its Nexus 7 tablet at its Indian marketplace. However, consumers looking at buying Nexus can only pre-order the device now since the company will start shipping the device only by April 5.

During his recent visit to India, Schmidt had apologised the Indian consumers for the non-availability of Nexus products in the country. "I do apologise, we are working on it. We want to fully service the market," Schmidt had said replying to a query on why the company is yet to offer the Nexus devices to Indian consumers.

Nexus 7 which competes with Apple Inc.'s iconic iPad was launched in the US in June last year. The 7-inch device is powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor and runs on Google's latest Android Jelly Bean operating system. The other features include WiFi, NFC, bluetooth, microUSB port, accelerometer, GPS, magnetometer and gyroscope.

Currently, the Play Store in India offers a 16GB Nexus 7 tab for Rs 15,999 which can be bought through Google Wallet account, much in the same manner how paid Android apps are being purchased from Google Play, now.

The tablet market in India, though still in an early stage of growth compared to many other countries, has started showing immense potential for growth. Presently, Samsung’s Galaxy tab rules the market with a share of about 25 per cent closely followed by Funtab from Micromax and Apple’s iPad. According to Cyber Media Research, about 3.11 million tablets were sold in India in 2012.