Making Low-Cost Android Tablets a Reality
The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet's guest contributor program, which is separate from the company's news coverage.
NEW YORK (
) -- With a set of patents developed by IPWireless now under its belt,
Nvidia
(NVDA) - Get Report
has taken yet another significant step in its growing mobile computing business with the introduction of its Kai platform.
The platform, which is specifically designed to bring down prices of tablets powered by
Google's
(GOOG) - Get Report
Android operating system, could well fuel the growing sales of Nvidia's Tegra 3 processors. The mobile and game console division contributes a little over 8% to our price estimate for Nvidia, which
at $20.98 stands at a premium of 60% to the current market price.
See
our complete analysis for Nvidia.
Power at a Lower Price Point
Cost is one of the biggest hurdles that makers of Android tablets have had to overcome, but devices like the Kindle Fire prove a $199 price point can be achieved. While the Kindle Fire benefits from an economy of scale only a retail giant like
Amazon
(AMZN) - Get Report
could enjoy, Nvidia is looking to do its part to drive down prices through the introduction of the Kai platform.
The Kai platform, which is expected to be launched later this year, plans to make cheap Android tablets a lot more powerful. The platform will be based on its Tegra 3 System on a chip, which currently appears in several high-end Android phones and tablets and will let device makers bring quad-core tablets to market for $199. The company claims to achieve the same through innovations developed to reduce power that's used by the display and lower cost components within the tablet.
As a result of the direct effect of Nvidia's low-cost Kai platform it becomes possible to build Tegra3 quad-core Android devices for low cost, which keeps the finished devices below the $200 price mark.
Growing Revenue from Smartphones and Tablets
Nvidia's consumer business registered a 21% increase on account of rising sales of Tegra3 processors. The world's first Tegra 3 phone was launched in February by HTC and Nvidia plans to launch around 30 by end of this year.
Fueled by surging growth in smartphone and tablet markets, the company is ramping up production of its Tegra 3 processors as it expects to ship about 25 million processors in 2012, almost doubling its shipments from 2011.We estimate Nvidia's revenue from the mobile and game console division to reach $0.8 billion by end of this year and more than double by the end of our forecast period.
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This commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet guest contributor program. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of TheStreet or its management.
