The Hit that is the Hudl, Was moving into the tablet market a smart move for Tesco?

The tablet market, a vast scary landscape filled with hundreds of small and large companies all fighting for a slice of market share. Fighting for overall supremacy you have, Apple, Samsung and Amazon all armed with their weapon of choice, Ipad, Galaxy and Kindle respectively. But despite all this strong competition there's still a lot of money to be made. There is still roughly 50 million people in the UK who don't own a tablet or a mobile computing device.

Que Tesco, the UK supermarket chain is no stranger to moving into unfamiliar markets such as car insurance and banking which it has done in the pass. It now looks to grant itself a seat at the table of the tablet production big boys, but how is it planning to do this, it's simple, Hudl.

The Hudl is a Tesco exclusive tablet aimed at families and those taking their first steps into the world of mobile computing. The product is an amazing addition to the Tesco brand as it shows off great internal specifications at an affordable price of just £119. Tesco also goes a step further by allowing their customers the option to double up their clubcard vouchers so they can purchase the Hudl and accessories for even less. With some customers paying less than £10 for theirs.

Lets look at how the Hudl can be used by all the family. One of the key features exclusive to Hudl is the Tesco T highlighted in the bottom left of the touch screen. This button is a direct link to all things Tesco so parents and older children can search Tesco Direct from here or even process a weekly shop and have it delivered to their door. Another feature of the Hudl is that it runs on the Android operating system, this will allow the user to access the Android market and the opportunity to download thousands of great apps for free. Examples like Facebook and Twitter for all your social networking needs, Polaris Office for all your word processing, graph and presentation building. Thousands of free games for both the parents and children to enjoy such as Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds.

The Hudl also offers front and rear facing cameras allowing customers the freedom to take photos and video and Skype as they wish. The option for expandable memory is also there, the Hudl has a standard memory of 16GB but this can extended to 48GB with a 32GB microSD card.

Tesco have made a bold move here, stepping into a market that is unfamiliar to them, but they have clearly done their research and have really thought about what their existing and new tablets customers want. Which is reliability and value for money. Which I believe the Hudl more than offers. So back to the title question, Was moving into the tablet market a smart move for Tesco? I'd have to say yes.

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References:

Engadget. 2013. Tesco Hudl review: Can a supermarket chain put out a decent tablet?. [online] Available at: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/27/tesco-hudl-review/ [Accessed: 11 Nov 2013].