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Slow tablet sales leading to layoffs in Taiwan

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With the poor and disappointing sales of HP TouchPad and RIM PlayBook a few other companies are laying off their employers because of the cancellation of the orders

A few weeks ago we came across news on HP TouchPad tablets going for sale at only $99 after it had a very disappointing sales report. Now, even the Blackberry PlayBook might be on some similar track as RIM offers promotions after promotions in an effort to convince people to buy the 7inch tablet.

Although, we have not come across any Android tablets exiting the market yet, but with the very high sale rate of the Apple iPad, they are also having a low sale rate. For this turn out not only the HP and RIM have suffered the consequence, but also some other companies. According to a DigiTimes report Taiwanese companies sourced with building these tablets for the western companies are laying off staff in response to cancelled orders.

Inventec may fire up to 400 people as a result of cancellation of orders for the HP TouchPad. Even Quanta could lay off about 1000 peoples due to the low demand for BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Although these figures never provided what number of people were hired for the new tablets. 

But the Quanta layoff is quite strange as the Amazons Kindle Fire is also going to be produced by Quanta. Kindle fire is reported to have been ordered by a million consumers in the pre-order of the device. The Kindle Fire even resembles a lot like the PlayBook in a few respects. 

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Pallab Jyotee Hazarika, 2011-10-31 (Update: 2012-05-26)