Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is expected to post higher sales for its Education tablets in 2015, according to Digitimes Research. The chipmaker, which came up with its Classmate PC series for developing countries in the education market, did not enjoy much success with its StudyBook tablet in 2012.
Replacement trend to continue in 2015
Digitimes stated that the Education tablets’ shipments would reach one million units in 2014, replacing some demand for the notebook-shaped Classmate PC. The report also mentioned that the replacement trend will catch up in 2015, driving shipment of Education tablets year-over-year growth by more than 100%, and accounting for 60% of Intel’s education product shipments, up from 35% in 2014.
According to Digitimes research, the countries that have earlier bought Classmate PCs would shift to the education tablet; this will cause a decline in the Classmate PC shipment from 2.5 million units in 2014 to below two million units in 2015. At the same time, the Education tablet’s shipments are expected to total more than three million units in 2015.
Shipment orders from the emerging countries take course as per the political scenario and government budgets. Therefore, it can’t be said yet whether the Education tablet will achieve the ceiling of 3.5 million units set by Classmate PCs.
Low-end Notebooks hold potential for Intel
For the third-quarter of 2014, Intel sold 15 million tablets, but the mobile chip division of the company posted another operating loss of $1.04 billion. Management is constantly reassuring regarding revenue next year, but x86 mobile chips will continue as a loss making enterprise.
It is expected that the company will earn greater revenue by shipping 20 million low-end notebook processors than selling 40 million tablet processors this year. Low-priced notebooks war between Google and Microsoft will eventually be in favor of Intel, says a report from Seeking Alpha by Alcaraz Research.
Rival AMD has decided to stay away from the Chrome OS-based computers, thereby giving Intel supreme reign. Intel has the largest share of the Chromebook processor market and is expected to continue for many years. Furthermore, as low priced Chromebooks are preferred for both education and the regular consumer market that will probably drive double-digit sales growth for InteI, says the report.
