Poco India head Himanshu Tandon talks about Poco Pad 5G, upcoming launches, HyperOS on tablets and more

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Soon after the launch of the new tablet, Poco India head Himanshu Tandon sat down for an exclusive chat with LiveMint to discuss a range of topics, including the Poco Pad 5G, the Poco ecosystem, scope for Poco to enter new segments, and more.

Tandon also revealed that the Poco Pad 5G received a good response during the first sale and was one of the fastest-selling tablets on Flipkart on the first day. Encouraged by the initial response to Poco Pad, Tandon said, “We are now thinking how do we take this tablet journey moving forward and how do we scale up this business because the start has been really really exciting for us.” 

Edited excerpts from the interaction: 

On why Poco took so long to launch Poco Pad

While explaining the reason for not launching a Poco tablet in India so far, Tandon said, “When we started this operation with Poco F1, we wanted to solidify our position in the smartphone market. Last one, one-and-a-half years has been in order to create a foothold in the market, which has been reflected in the IDC report.”

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“So we thought, from a mobile perspective, this is the next closest category that we should be entering in, considering that we have a decent, stabilised mobile phone business,” he noted. 

Will Poco launch a more premium tablet, perhaps a Poco Pad Pro?

“So first of all, this is our first entry to the business of tablets…we want to see the sales, how it is performing for us, and then we certainly want to build our base in this category (tablets) and expand our base. We have been seeing this premiumisation trend, not only in mobile phones but also in other categories, and we are seeing the same trends in the tablet category.”

“Since we are very close to the consumers, we would like to take feedback, and if there is solid feedback that we want to go above 30k or above 40k into those categories… Obviously, the possibility is still there, and we will certainly explore (it),” Tandon added

Poco’s USP in tablet segment

“We want to maintain our core, which is the price-to-performance ratio. So when we were having this discussion about launching a new tablet, we thought … which is the best-performing tablet in the market. We don’t want to compromise on our brand ethos… So we wanted to basically launch a tablet which has a high performance, because that’s the heart of any device,” he stated. 

Talking specifically about the Poco Pad 5G, Tandon stated, “Apart from the price-to-performance ratio, which is still the core of the tablet, in this particular tablet, what we have done is, we have provided a massive 10,000 mAh battery so that, for example, a person is able to complete his work and has an extended lifetime in which they can use the product. We have also paired this tablet with Dolby Atmos, which is basically used for OTT consumption, TV apps and entertainment.”

“It also has a 12-bit display posting around 2.5k resolution. As a result, it becomes not only a very performance-oriented device for the youth gamers but also a very complete device with the Dolby atmosphere and a 10-hour battery,” he further noted

Software experience on Poco tablets and HyperOS:

“I think this (software) is one of the pillars that we are working on apart from the hardware perspective. In the price- to-performance ratio, there is one sub-tenet, that is the software experience. What we’re trying to do is, how do we integrate our Connected ecosystem. That is the work that we’re currently running, basically R&D investments are going in. How do we integrate our mobile experience to tablet, and how is there a seamless transition between mobile as well as tablets? That is one area of improvement that we are trying to focus on from an R&D perspective,” he stated. 

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Talking about if there will be any bloatware or ads during HyperOS for Poco tablets, Tandon said, “Since this (Poco Pad) runs on HyperOS, and HyperOS will have different segmentation, let’s say under 15k portfolio, to about 15k portfolio, obviously the experience would be different. And as we move up the ladder in the price point, obviously the experience would be even better, even cleaner, considering the TG (target group) that we could communicate it to.” 

In a specific reference to the software situation on the Poco Pad 5G, he said, “The current tablet has a very clean experience, and we certainly want to maintain that in the near future. So that is the idea that we are currently working on. And experience is not only by loading the particular device with an app. It’s basically how relevant those applications are to the current set of users. That makes more sense for us.”

Competition in tablet segment to increase

Answering a question about why the competition in the tablet segment is not quite at the level of Android smartphones, Tandon said, “I think with traction coming into the (tablet) segment… the same competition that you see in the smartphone business, in the near future, will be seen in tablets. It is just because the category was not growing, that brands were not keeping an attention on it.”

“But since the category is growing, we’ll see a lot of R&D investments into the segment, and we have put huge R&D investment with regards to how we want to integrate a well-rounded tablet into the market, but with a superior price-to-performance ratio,” Tandon added.

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Published: 17 Sep 2024, 02:14 AM IST