Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain, reportedly plans to announce a tablet under its own Hudl brand in order to compete with Apple, Google and Amazon in the tablet and e-reader market.
According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, the retailer, which also operates Tesco Mobile as an MVNO in the UK, intends to launch the Android-based device before Christmas in order to take advantage of the gift-buying season, targeting the low end of the tablet market with a £100 (€116 or $155) price tag.
Unnamed sources in the hardware industry told the Guardian they expect the retailer to offer an 18-cm or 7-inch device, which would be preloaded with online shopping at Tesco and access to the company's Blinkbox video-on-demand service. It would compete directly wih devices such as the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire, sources said.
"The mind boggles at Tesco getting into this, but you can understand why they would," Jeremy Davies of Context, which tracks UK and continental technology sales, told the Guardian. "It's possible they would look to sell it for about £100, and initially order a few hundred thousand devices."
Tesco applied for the Hudl trademark in February. Because of its status as an MVNO, it's also not unthinkable that Tesco Mobile could offer the tablet as part of a mobile contract plan.
For more:
- see this Guardian article
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