HP returns to tablets after 15 years, looks at India for its re-entry with OmniPad 12

Renewed effort

HP’s re-entry into the pill market had been saved underneath wraps till the gadget debuted Monday at an occasion on the firm’s Gurgaon workplace.

HP, the world’s second-largest PC maker by market share, isn’t new to the pill class. The corporate as soon as offered tablets underneath the TouchPad model, which rivalled the iPad. Nevertheless, it proved to be one of many shortest-lived pill manufacturers in the marketplace.

HP is making a comeback in tablets. (Picture credit score: HP)

In 2010, HP acquired a struggling cell gadget maker for $1.2 billion and noticed a possibility to distinguish its tablets from rivals by way of the WebOS working system, one of many first cell working methods with sturdy multitasking capabilities. The HP TouchPad, nevertheless, failed to achieve traction. Later, HP switched to Android for the Slate 7, a finances pill, however that experiment didn’t take off.

Regardless of being a family identify, HP didn’t make a dent within the pill and smartphone classes, a tacit admission that the iPhone and Google’s Android working system had achieved a dominant place amongst customers. The ultimate nail within the coffin got here when HP ceased manufacturing of its tablets and smartphones and exited each classes after solely two years.

Tapping India

Younger customers don’t even bear in mind WebOS or the TouchPad, but years later, HP is making a comeback in tablets, with India among the many most important markets for any giant tech firm. It’s a large market with an increasing center class and a younger client base, and it doubtlessly serves as a check marketplace for corporations to launch merchandise first after which replicate the components in different markets.

Tablets might have matured as a class, with the iPad remaining a preferred selection amongst customers. This nonetheless makes the OmniPad 12, which is being launched in India first, an necessary product for HP within the mid-tier pill market, significantly in price-sensitive markets like India.

Despite the fact that the iPad is the undisputed international chief, in India, HP’s major rivals will probably be Samsung Electronics, Lenovo Group Ltd, and Xiaomi Corp. Mixed, all main gamers, together with Apple, shipped roughly 4.4 million tablets in 2025.

Challenges for HP

Through the years, tablets have gained options and processing energy to run almost any app, to the purpose that manufacturers are advertising and marketing them as laptop computer replacements. Nevertheless, from a product standpoint, they nonetheless can not match PCs.

“It’s a good choice for HP to enter this house when the pill market has been rising. Dad and mom are shopping for them for his or her children, for private OTT consumption, and light-weight productiveness,” Navkendar Singh, Affiliate Vice President, Worldwide Knowledge Company, informed indianexpress.com.

Singh identified the supply of a lot better-quality tablets from Chinese language manufacturers at extra reasonably priced worth factors. He stated that he sees some challenges for HP, significantly its picture as a PC model. “Will probably be robust since client tablets are positioned in customers’ minds nearer to the cellphone class than to PCs,” he stated.

Singh additionally famous that positioning and distribution of the OmniPad 12 will probably be key. “This may require a unique type of advertising and marketing and placement in giant format retail shops and on-line channels.”

He stated the important thing problem for HP or any main consumer-facing tech model getting into a brand new product class, particularly at this cut-off date, is methods to safe sufficient reminiscence and elements and worth the product appropriately. The world is dealing with an unprecedented disaster through which AI corporations are shopping for up reminiscence chips, driving costs for these elements, that are additionally utilized in laptops and smartphones, to soar.