Tablet Computers: Pricing Is Key

Any minute now, Apple will intro its newest iPad, amid much fanfare and anticipation. But Apple isn't the only firm pushing tablet computers.

HTC--the company behind many Android-powered smartphones--is targeting the tablet market with a new product called the Flyer, which features a stylus for input.

With the tablet on the verge of becoming a mature product and new entries proliferating, price is increasingly important to capturing customers new to the category and attracting current users ready to trade up. In fact, a Boston Consulting Group study notes that tablet prices will have to fall further for the product to become truly a mass-market item.

So a price war may actually be on the way, boosting industry volume and putting tablets in the hands of people who otherwise might have purchased a netbook or a new smartphone. Interestingly, an Economist article from last fall found that iPad prices vary from country to country. This suggests pricing latitude and the potential for country-by-country price competition as more tablets come to market.

HTC Builds Its Brand

Taiwan's HTC was once a mostly-anonymous contract manufacturer, making PDAs (remember them?) for Compaq (remember them?). Today, it's gained prominence as the manufacturing brand behind the popular Android smart phones, which rely on Google's operating system.

Sales are going up, as are marketing costs, due to HTC's plans to maintain a world-class brand. Despite supply shortages, HTC forecasts 4Q global sales of as many as 8.5 million handsets, driven in part by the company's new Win 7 phones, not just Android OS handsets.

Want to see HTC's online brand-building activities? Click on its YouTube channel (nearly 21 million views to date), Twitter account (nearly 300,000 followers), Facebook page (which 282,000 people like), or its regular Web page.