Apple Dominates The European Tablet Market, But There's Room For Competition

Despite Apple's dominance in tablets, product strategists from Acer, Archos, Asus, HP, Motorola, Research In Motion, Samsung, and Toshiba have all launched would-be iPad competitors in Europe. These global OEMs compete with operators and niche players for tablet shoppers' attention. But even with all this competition, prices for iPad competitors remain too high, and no player has assembled an ecosystem of content and applications that rival Apple's. Unless prices fall rapidly, the European tablet market is vulnerable to disruption from Chinese and Taiwanese original design manufacturers (ODMs) hoping to move up in the consumer value chain. As such, tablet product strategists at hardware manufacturers should bring down prices and aggressively pursue content and business applications for their devices. Product strategists at content providers should prioritize browser optimization first, native app development for iPad second, and should consider alternative platforms as a distant third priority.