Indeed, Tesco points out that in the UK right now some 75% of households do not own a tablet and the market for these is still in its early days, even in developed markets, and it is there for the grabbing.īut I suspect the sights are bigger. Right now, the intention appears to be to offer these devices in the UK market only, which is Tesco’s biggest, with nearly half of its 6,784 stores over 310,000 of its 530,000 employees and most of its profit. Alongside this, the company has its web portal for online shopping and grocery delivery, as well as various consumer-focused financial services like online banking and insurance, and brodband, telephone and cellular services.Īs with Amazon and its e-commerce operation and content holdings and subsequent foray into hardware with the Kindle e-readers and subsequent Kindle Fire tablets, Tesco pulling all of these together and putting them front and center will help the company promote these products more effectively, in a way that only Tesco would be able to do on its own device. In some ways, offering a tablet is a logical progression for Tesco, which has in the past year acquired Mobcast, an online bookseller, for $7.2 million and beefed up its Blinkbox film and TV service. “Customers are quite rightly very discerning about the technology they buy so we knew we had to be competitive on all fronts.” The first stage in our tablet offering, it’s convenient, integrated and easy to use with no compromise on spec,” Tesco Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, said in a statement. “Hudl is a colourful, accessible tablet for the whole family to enjoy. It’s also just chapter one for Tesco in this game, says its CEO (emphasis mine): Tesco is playing on a magic combination of factors: it already has a pretty large range of digital services (from entertainment through to shopping and banking) we still have relatively low tablet penetration in markets like the UK and it’s being very Tesco-like (that is, competitive) on price. Those who buy Hudl on the Clubcard can buy it for less than £100 ($160) when the device goes on sale September 30, first in the UK market. The idea will be for Tesco to use the hardware to promote use of its own range of digital content and e-commerce services, and in keeping with that it will be even cheaper to buy the device for those who use the company’s Clubcard loyalty card. Tesco, the UK-based retail giant with 20 million customers in 12 countries across Europe and Asia, today took its biggest step yet into digital commerce and content: the company launched Hudl, an own-brand, seven-inch-screened Android (Jellybean) tablet priced at £119 ($190).
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