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The Taiwan based technology newspaper and website, Digitimes, known for it's dubiously inconsistent but sometimes correct predictions on most asia based hardware manufacturing has an editorial out tonight discussing how Google's Nexus 7 Tablet will affect Android competitors. Leading off the essay is a statement that industry sources have estimated Google will sell between 2.5 to upwards of more than 3 million Nexus 7 Tablets in FY 2012. This is the first time we've seen any hard number estimate of how many Nexus 7s might be sold. Previously a 600,000 number was bandied about as the number of Google's initial order of tablets for the launch. If accurate the company plans to sell a lot more before year end.
The report goes on to discuss the implications of Google's low priced success with their new 7 inch tablet. Most competing Android tablet makers are dropping prices in order to compete and the author surmises that an unintended effect of the Nexus 7 might be that hardware manufacturers decide that since Google is making virtually no profit on their device which is priced at just about BOM, that it might not be practical for them to compete in the market. Now whether this would just be 7 inch tablets or larger 10 inch versions as well is unclear.
But the article goes on to say that the Nexus 7 could very well make inroads on Apple's iPad but at what cost to other Android tablet makers is unclear. A successful Nexus 7 tablet could surely entice more app makers to make Tablet-optimized apps and eat market share from Apple and conceivably other hardware vendors could then capitalize on this by making attractive larger form tablets. You can read the whole article at this link (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120717PD202.html). So what do you think? Is the Nexus 7 a blessing or a curse for Android tablet makers? Will the success of the Nexus 7 expand the market for Android tablets or will it cannibalize it's own Android brothers? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.