Tablet sales have taken off in Poland WBJ

Tablets priced below zł.600 are cornering Poland's electronic market, reports Rzeczpospolita. Their 2012 sales could reach 300,000 units. Just last year, experts expressed concern about whether Poles would accept these latest computing innovations, but fast forward to today and tablets have arrived in many of the country's households.

Marketwatchers are crediting Chinese producers delivering cheap brands to retailers such as Biedronka and Carrefour. Analytics firm IDS estimates that, in total, more than 700,000 units were sold in Poland in 2012, compared to 170,000 in 2011.

On the other hand, the last netbooks are currently being sold in Polish electronic hardware stores. That segment is dying because of lack of support by producers - Samsung, Dell, HP, and many others have stopped producing new units. The software giant – Microsoft, has also stopped supporting Windows development for netbooks. “The company's latest OS – Windows 8 can't be legally installed on them,” said Tomasz Siedlecki marketing director at RTV Euro AGD retail chain to Gazeta Wyborcza.

The main reason for the shift is, as usual, the price. The cheapest tablets can be bought for less than zł.300 while netbook prices rarely drop below zł.1.000.

Poland A.M.