With tablets finding an eager audience in Southeast Asia, Android is emerging as the most prevalent operating system for the devices. Almost two thirds of tablets sold in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam support the platform.
The research firm GfK Asia has reported that “tablets running on [Android] are generally priced lower than those running on other OS and its greater affordability encourages mass consumer adoption which in turn accelerates further development of its ecosystem.”
Price is clearly a significant factor; the leading tablet in developed markets, Apple’s iPad, is typically marketed at a higher price than most Android-compatible devices. The allure of tablet devices is evidently strong in the region, with q-on-q expansion in five of the six countries.
Over 1.6 million tablets were sold in the region over the last year, with more than half of these (1 million) supporting the Android OS. WhileQ4 tablet sales almost doubled over the previous quarter in Indonesia, it was in Malaysia that the most units were sold. The country contributed US$374 million towards the total regional market value of US$962 million.
