After taking down its store yesterday whole day, Apple introduced a bunch of new products to its shelves which include a new 9.7-inch iPad, red colour variant for iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and bumped up storage for iPhone SE for the same price. One thing which really took the news world with the surprise was the new iPad. The new 9.7-inch iPad will sell at a starting price of Rs 28,900 making it the cheapest iPad (full-sized) ever from the US-based multinational. Further, the tablet shares a lot of specifications with the discontinued iPad Air 2 except the new A9 chip which was introduced with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. But, is the new iPad possibly the best deal right now for a person living in India?
The answer is pretty much weighed in favour of Apple here mainly because India has continued to become one of the important opportunities for Apple in the recent past. This is evident from the fact that India is one of the 21 countries in which Apple will release its new iPad and iPhones on 24th March. However, this was not the case before. Apple products always landed in India much after the hype about the latest products was calmed down, which is why often the latest iPhones struggled to find a large number users until the company introduced some offers on the same.
Further, the latest report from International Data Corporation hinted something more in favour of Apple in India. While the overall tablet market in India continued to dip with vendors like Datawind, Lenovo and Samsung all struggling to cope up with the declining market, Apple surprisingly gained when compared to the previous quarter i.e. Q3 2016. The IDC report revealed that Cupertino-based giant grew 16 percent when compared to Q3 2016 and 17 percent when compared to Q4 2015. And amongst the top selling products in the tablet category was Apple iPad Air 2 which has now been replaced by the new 9.7-inch iPad. Further, the fact that the new iPad is cheaper than the iPad Air 2 will help the company attract even more sales.
Let’s look at the products from some other vendors which can come close to the new iPad. Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 currently sells for about Rs 38,000 and the new upcoming Tab S3 is expected to be priced somewhere around the same price range. Keeping aside the budget tablet range and phablets, Lenovo has its 10-inch Yoga Tab 3 Pro which is also priced at Rs 40,000 mark. So, if we look at the competition, Apple doesn’t have a lot to worry about. Whereas, we will really have to track the future trends in the tablet market. As of now, the new iPad from Apple looks to be a winner.