Five ways Apple has cornered the tablet market

Telstra has finally discontinued its T-Touch Tab and will start offering the iPad 2 in stores, the company has announced, just a year after the device was originally launched.

According to Fairfax, the tablet has been pulled from sale and will now be retired from the company’s range of products. It’s a direct consequence of Apple’s dominance in the sector, with smaller competitors all but driven completely out of the market.

While there’s plenty of discussion about whether a competitor can ever topple Apple from its peak, here are five ways Apple has continued to dominate this market:

Relying on branding strength

Telstra could make the best tablet – even better than the iPad – but it still wouldn’t sell as well. Consumers trust brands, and Telstra is not a consumer electronics company, it is a services company.

Given that Telstra’s reputation isn’t at its best right now either, marketing an electronic gadget for the home isn’t going to get a warm reception when Apple is your direct competitor.

Apple has dominated the space, but Samsung, Motorola and Research In Motion are the competitors here, not telcos. While there is an argument Telstra could have made the Tab work given its experience with the T-Box, why would a telco bother to take on such a fierce and powerful competitor?

Apple is a trusted brand. Competitors wanting to get in on this space need to realise that if you aren’t known, or trusted, then you aren’t going to get anywhere.

Getting the content right

When Jeff Bezos was unveiling Amazon’s Kindle Fire last month, he made an important point that is key to the potential success of the device – content is everything.

The reason iPad competitors haven’t been performing well is because consumers don’t necessarily know what to do with them. The Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy tablets are great devices, packed with plenty of great hardware, but it’s not enough to capture the public you. You need content, and you need services.

The iPad has both of these. For the last decade Apple has always been keen on making sure users don’t just have a device, but they have to access to content to accompany it. This is the exact same logic behind the iTunes and App Stores, which have since expanded into podcasts, videos and television shows since their inception.

Any tablet that is going to have any chance at beating the iPad needs to offer services and content. The Amazon Kindle has a good shot at doing this, but whether it will be enough to topple Apple is anyone’s guess.

Legal action

Like it or not, Apple has been extremely vigilant in making sure no competitor infringes on its territory. Although it’s involved in a few different disputes, the most public and successful of these has been the suit against Samsung, which stopped the Galaxy Tab from being sold in Australia.

This is a massive blow to not only Samsung but the market in general. A potential competitor to the iPad has been struck down during the most important time of the year – the Christmas shopping season. This Christmas, the iPad will be the biggest and best tablet on the market, the second year in a row.

Apple may be getting a bad name for itself with all this legal action, (both in the United States and Europe as well), but as long as it has market power, this won’t really matter. The average consumer won’t care too much about all this, so they’ll naturally be drawn to the best, and only, gadget on the shelf.

Getting the pricing right

Pricing is such an important part of the marketing process that it’s a wonder why other manufacturers, namely Motorola and Samsung, haven’t been able to get this right.

The iPad works because it ranges from $579 to nearly $1,000. It appeals to parents who are willing to shell out a little for a Christmas present, while those with a bit more cash to spare have the option for more storage space and 3G.

But with so much WiFi available now and storage space becoming less of an issue, the pricing differences don’t even really matter anymore. You might as well just pay the $579 for a basic model and use apps to get around the lack of storage.

Paying hundreds of dollars for an Android device isn’t attractive to shoppers who may already own an iPod or Mac and know how Apple products work. The pricing for alternative gadgets is just too high for any potential buyers to be convinced.

On the other hand, you don’t want to price too low either, which has an association with low-quality. Apple has always erred on the side of caution with their pricing, and it’s maintained the brand’s positive association with quality.

Speed to market

Speed isn’t everything, but it’s a big part of why Apple has been able to dominate this market. The first iPad was released in early 2010. Shortly afterwards, rivals began saying they would launch rival tablets – but not for several months.

Some have even only come out this year. And by that time, Apple was getting ready to announce the iPad 2, which had a much better rate of success with its inventory and being able to cater to demand.

This isn’t necessarily a problem competitors can help, since Apple announced the iPad basically out of nowhere. But it doesn’t help they’re taking in some cases over a year to get a tablet device on the market when the key rival is gaining market share with every month.