Xiaomi CEO says that his company is ready to challenge the Apple iPad

Xiaomi, the manufacturer that keeps churning out low priced, high value phones, is moving into the tablet market. Starting at the beginning of this month, Xiaomi offered tablets in China, with the eventual goal of taking on the Apple iPad. CEO Lei Jun said that producing Android tablets is not a difficult task, but the problem lies with the lack of apps and games for the platform.

With none of the current Android tablet producers able to devise an ecosystem for Android tablets, Lei said that gives Xiaomi the opportunity to do so. Apple had dominated the tablet market for years, which was expected since it was the iPad that created the category in the first place. But Android tablets are now outselling the iPads in terms of revenue. The recently released Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 are a pair of well-spec'd slates that many are considering "iPad killers".

Xiaomi has made a name for itself  by using low priced MediaTek chips to produce cheap, popular smartphones. By using its "Hunger Marketing" sales technique, Xiaomi builds up the hype on a particular handset, and then puts a small amount up for sale, thus assuring a quick sellout and more publicity for its next sale. For example, late last month Xiaomi sold 10,000 units of its popular Xiaomi Redmi Note phablet in just one second. It is unknown whether the company will use this marketing tactic to sell tablets.

source: DigiTimes