Carphone Warehouse said that, since going on sale on 27 July, the Google Nexus 7 tablet has become the highest selling Android tablet in its history. Although the news means the device still lags considerably behind any of Apple's three iPad models, it means that devices such as the Asus Transformer Prime and the Samsung Galaxy Tab have already been eclipsed by a device whose main selling point has been its affordable £159 price tag.
The news also sets up the prospect of more affordable tablets reaching the market soon, and of Amazon’s new £159 Kindle Fire HD also establishing itself quickly thanks to its low price. Graham Stapleton, Chief Commercial Officer at Carphone Warehouse, said “It’s impressive that this product is our biggest selling Android tablet, and it will be really interesting to see if other manufacturers will follow suit with smaller tablets over the coming months to spice up the Christmas period.”
Carphone, the UK’s largest independent mobile retailer, said it has seen a huge demand for this smaller sized, 7” tablet running on the Android 4.1, Jelly Bean operating system.
“Looking at the sales of the Google Nexus tablet, it’s clear that there is a massive demand amongst our customer base for smaller tablets,” said Stapleton. “We’re seeing a real shift in what customers are using their tablets for, with more and more watching content on the go. It’s now common to see people using their tablets during the morning commute or catching up on the day’s news in a local coffee shop, and smaller devices make it easier to handle.”
He added that “We’ve seen that 59 per cent of total tablet sales in our stores are sold as either connected or tethered, to allow access to the internet on tablets that don’t have inbuilt 3G connectivity.” The retailer declined to release sales figures.
