Cheap Android tablets, the kind you see for less than $149, are a runaway hit. The kind of people who buy them typically don’t want all the whiz-bang features of higher end products, they just want to surf the web and browse Facebook on a larger screen.
According to DigiTimes, 60 million cheap tablets were sold in China in 2012. That number is expected to hit 100 million this year. How does that compare to Apple’s iPad? Apple managed to sell 65.7 million iPads during calendar 2012, but that’s all around the world. This year they too will also likely surpass 100 million units, but again, those are international numbers and not country specific.
Will these cheap tablets ever be a hit in places other than China? Acer is trying hard, really hard, to get the Iconia B1 into people’s hands in Europe. I’ve even seen it on sale here in Finland, which is pretty incredible. According to DigiTimes, Acer plans on shipping 10 million tablets in 2013, with most of them being the cheap kind.
I still say you should avoid cheap tablets like the plague, but I know some of you will pelt tomatoes at me for suggesting you buy something like a refurbished iPad or a new iPad mini.
