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Reuters is reporting via an unnamed source that Google will launch a 2nd generation Nexus 7 by July of this year and it will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU rather than an Nvidia Tegra chip. The new 7 inch tablet will also feature a higher resolution screen and thinner bezel. According to the source the company decided to go with the Snapdragon over the Tegra because of improved power management.
Further information gleamed from the source is that Google plans on selling up to 8 million units of the Nexus 7 in the 2nd half of this year, almost double the 4.6 million sold during the same period last year. The company plans to aggressively price the 2nd generation Nexus 7 and might offer the new tablet at the same $199 price point while dropping the original Nexus 7 to a new lower price. Alternately, the company is reportedly also considering selling the new Nexus 7 at a price of $149 and discontinuing the old model outright.
While Google has apparently not decided on the pricing strategy as of yet, analysts think that Google will use a 'zero margin strategy' in order to get as many mobile devices into consumers hands as possible. The company makes 97% of its income from advertising and the more eyes and fingers it can get on mobile devices like the Nexus 7 the better. Asustek will continue to be Google's hardware partner on the 2nd generation Nexus 7 according to the source. It is widely believed that Google plans to introduce the 2nd generation Nexus 7 during the Google I/O conference this coming May. A release of the tablet in July as suggested in this report would go along with that timeline.
Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-google-nexus-idUSBRE93205L20130403?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews)