Tesco to sell its own tablet device, just in time for Christmas

Following in the footsteps of Amazon, UK’s supermarket chain Tesco is reportedly launching its own tablet in the coming months. The new device is said to be available for purchase in the Christmas season, The Sunday Times claims. It is said to be “high-quality,” and probably will be similar to Amazon’s Kindle Fire that costs £130. The price of Tesco’s tablet is not announced yet.

tesco_extra_01
Photo: Tesco’s sign, Press Association

The new tablet will arrive with preloaded books, films and music, apps for Tesco’s digital grocery and banking products and Blinkbox, the chain’s online no-subscription service streaming films and shows. With the new product, Tesco aims to win back from Apple and Amazon—the boom of Kindle Fires and iPads have disrupted Tesco’s successful performance in the books and DVDs niches.

While Tesco declines to comment on the details about the new product, there’s speculation that it will appear under the HUDL brand name. The word “hudle” can be found on the company’s commercial website, but there’re no products listed in the section. Moreover, the company has recently registered the HUDL trademark at Intellectual Property Office—the description of the entry states that the name is for “tablet computers; accessories and devices for use with tablet computers [and more].

“Releasing a tablet linked to its own digital download service, Blinkbox, is a smart move by Tesco,» commeted Fiona Keenan, consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, to Independent.co.uk. «Tablet owners are incredibly loyal to the download store they are first linked to—92% of Apple customers that download digital video do so via iTunes and Google has also been successful in attracting its tablet users to the Google Play store.  While this level of loyalty will be challenging to achieve, Tesco is in a good place to profit from both initial hardware sales and the long-term boost to its digital services.”