Poco India Head Himanshu Tandon Talks Poco Pad 5G, Upcoming Launches, HyperOS on Tablets, and More

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Shortly after the launch of the new tablet, Poco India Head Himanshu Tandon sat down exclusively with LiveMint to discuss a variety of topics including the Poco Pad 5G, the Poco ecosystem, Poco’s scope 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 about how to take this tablet journey forward and how to scale this business because the beginning has been really very exciting for us.”

Edited excerpts from the interaction:

Why Poco took so long to launch Poco Pad

Explaining the reason for not launching a Poco tablet in India so far, Tandon said, “When we started this venture with Poco F1, we wanted to consolidate our position in the smartphone market. The last one and a half years was all about creating a foothold in the market, which has been reflected in the IDC report.”

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“That’s why we think that from a mobile perspective, this is the closest category we should get into, given that we have a decent and stable mobile business,” he said.

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

“First of all, this is our first entry into the tablet business… we want to see the sales, how we are doing and of course we want to build our base in this category (tablets) and expand it. We have been seeing this premiumisation trend, not only in mobile phones but in other categories as well, and we are seeing the same trends in the tablet category.”

“Because we are very close to consumers, we would like to get their feedback and if there is strong feedback that we want to go above 30,000 or 40,000 in those categories… Obviously, the possibility is still there and we will certainly explore it,” Tandon added.

Poco’s USP in the tablet segment

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

Speaking specifically about the Poco Pad 5G, Tandon said, “Apart from the price-performance ratio, which remains the core of the tablet, on this particular tablet, what we have done is provide a massive 10,000mAh battery so that, for example, a person can complete their work and have a longer lifespan where 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 with a resolution of around 2.5k. As a result, it becomes not only a very performance-oriented device for young gamers, but also a very complete device with Dolby Atmos and a 10-hour battery life,” he 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-performance ratio, there is a sub-principle, which is the software experience. What we are trying to do is how do we integrate our connected ecosystem. That is the work that we are currently doing, basically R&D investments are being made. How do we integrate our mobile experience with the tablet and how do we make a seamless transition between mobile and tablet? That is an area of ​​improvement that we are trying to focus on from an R&D perspective,” he said.

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On whether there will be bloatware or ads during HyperOS for Poco tablets, Tandon said, “Since this (Poco Pad) runs on HyperOS, and HyperOS will have a different segmentation, let’s say between the sub-15,000 customers and the ones around 15,000, obviously the experience will be different. And as we go up the price scale, obviously the experience will 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 for the near future. That’s the idea we’re currently working on. And the experience is not just about loading the particular device with an app. It’s basically about how relevant those apps are to the current set of users. That makes more sense to us.”

Competition in the tablet segment will increase

Responding to a question on why competition in the tablet segment is not at par with that of Android smartphones, Tandon said, “I think with the momentum that the (tablet) segment is gaining… the same competition that we see in the smartphone business, in the near future, will be seen in tablets. This is simply because the category was not growing, so brands were not paying attention to it.”

“But as the category is growing, we will see a lot of R&D investment in the segment, and we have made a huge investment in R&D with respect to how we want to bring a full-featured tablet to market, but at a superior price-performance ratio,” Tandon added.

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Published: Sep 17, 2024, 02:14 am IST