Tablets priced below zł.600 are cornering Poland’s electronics market. Their 2013 sales could reach 300,000 units, according to daily Rzeczpospolita. Just last year, experts expressed concern as to whether Poles would accept these latest computing innovations, but fast forward to today and tablets have arrived in many of the country’s households.

Market-watchers are crediting Chinese producers, who deliver cheap brands to retailers such as Biedronka and Carrefour. Analysis firm IDC estimates that, in total, more than 700,000 units were sold in Poland in 2012, over 400 percent the 2011 figure of 170,000.

The most popular tablets available in Poland in Q1 2012 were the more expensively priced iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab devices. The cheaper brands, costing less than zł.1,000, had a market share of just 13 percent.
But with decreasing prices, the situation changed rapidly.
“In Q3 the tablets with a price tag of less than zł.600 accounted for over 50 percent of the sales of all tablets in Poland,” said IDC analyst Marcin Kujda.

The prices continue to drop. And while the low-price tablets may not be as powerful or as fast as their high-end counterparts made by Apple and Samsung, the low price tag is something most consumers look for when purchasing new electronic devices. And now the cheapest devices can be bought for less than zł.300.
That lower prices are the main factor behind the surge in tablet sales is clearly visible in the market. GoClever, a company that produced tablets sold in discount chain Biedronka didn’t release official sales data, but admitted to Rzeczpospolita that sales rose by 600 percent in 2012 compared to the year before.

The leader in tablets sales in Poland, Manta Multimedia, sold 100,000 units in the first 11 months of 2012, according to the company’s own data. This year it plans to sell over 300,000 tablets.
On the other hand, the last netbooks are currently being sold in Polish electronic hardware stores. The segment is dying because of lack of support by producers – Samsung, Dell, HP, and many others have stopped producing new units. Software giant Microsoft has also stopped supporting Windows development for netbooks.

Jacek Ciesnowski