Sometimes too much of a good thing can turn into a problem – diversity is nice, but sometimes you have to go back to your core product and that seems to be the case with Tesco’s new boss Dave Lewis, as he concentrates on their grocery business. Last year, Tesco launched its first ever Android tablet called the Hudl – with the help of good reviews of decent hardware, competitive pricing and a launch right before Christmas, it has racked up over 500,000 in sales and there was talk of a Hudl2 coming out this month.
On the heels the tablet’s success, Tesco’s Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, announced they would also launch their own Hudl smartphone by the end of the year. They claimed it would be along the lines of the Galaxy S series, running the Android operating system and have Tesco services pre-installed. However, Robin Terrell, Tesco’s multichannel director says they will be putting the smartphone on hold, but will still concentrate on the Hudl2 tablet – citing the competition is ferocious in the smartphone market.
Conlumino analyst Neil Saunders believes Tesco has made the right move – he feels that they would have struggled in the smartphone market and that it would have taken away from their concentration in their core grocery business. He said:
“Inevitably what we will see over this period of change is some of the things that were done in the past couple of years will be sidelined. They might not have been wrong at the time but the full focus might be on the core business in terms of financial resources and where execs spend their time. The phone has been put on hold and likely will be shuffled silently out and we’ll see that in other areas as well.”
He also believes that sticking with their already successful tablet is a good move, as the tablet industry is not as mature as the smartphone segment – still allowing them to compete. He thinks there is a need for their tablet in the price niche they created.
Tesco’s Terrell said their second-generation tablet will improve on the “screen size, speed, design and the number of apps.” He said that many customers viewed the Hudl as a nice secondary tablet, however, the Hudl2 may actually be thought of as a primary device.
Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if Tesco made the correct decision to abandon their smartphone idea – do you have a Hudl tablet and do you like it…as always, we would love to hear from you.