Wishtel Spices Up Tab Market

The government's ambitious project, Aakash, is likely to face stiff competition from Wishtel's two low-cost tablets, Ira and Ira Thing, launched today.

India is witnessing a boom in the low-cost tablet segment. The trend was pioneered by the government-sponsored Aakash tablets. This was followed by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL)'s Penta range of tablets launched recently. Intex Technologies (India) Ltd. too launched a low-cost tablet in the Indian market. Many other domestic players like Micromax Informatics Ltd. are likely to join the battle for supremacy in this segment. (See DataWind Adds New Twist to Aakash Saga, Is the Aakash Dream Over?, IndiaWatch: Micromax Preps Tablet Launch and 2011's Top Device Trends.)

The USP of Wishtel's Ira Thing (the goddess of learning in Hindi) is its support for Indian languages. Priced at INR 5,500 (US $107), the company plans to focus on the educational sector.

"By enabling support for Indian languages, we are providing the opportunity to hundreds of millions of Indians to join the tablet revolution. We also hope to reach out to those brilliant minds in India that are inhibited for the lack of proper resources," says Milind Shah, CEO, Wishtel in a press conference today.

Started by two management students in 2010, Wishtel will deliver service support from more than 350 service centers across the country. The company plans to bundle the devices with its various data plans. It will also provide 3G dongles with the tablets in the near future.

The tablets will be manufactured from the company's Maharashtra and Gujarat units that have a manufacturing capacity of 1 lakh units per month.

The Ira tablet has been priced at INR 4,000 (US $78) and offers a resistive touch screen with Android 2.2 OS.

According to sources, the company also plans to enter the network industry soon. This will help it take take its content to the rural areas in an efficient and effective way, since connectivity in the rural parts of the country is crippled.

- Rimit Singh, Correspondent, Light Reading India