NEW DELHI: The new year may be a year oflow-cost computing inIndia. Sales bookings for the world's cheapest tablet, Aakash, have soared to 14 lakh units just two weeks after it was put up for sale online for Rs 2,500 a piece.
To cater to the 'unexpected' demand, UK-based vendor Datawind, the maker of the $35 tablet, has decided to establish three new factories - in Cochin, Noida and Hyderabad - in the first half of 2012 to assemble the tablet. Datawind currently has only one factory in Hyderabad, with its vendor Quad, which makes the LCD panel for the tablet.
"We never expected such a high response from both corporate and individual buyers. We plan to supply 70,000-75,000 units per day once the factories are in place by April," Suneet SinghTuli, CEO, Datawind told ET from Panama, where he was invited to advise its government on its low-cost computing project.
"Around two weeks ago, we received a callfrom India's computeremergency response team that our website was probablysuffering from a largecyber attack. We had to inform them we had just opened sale through our website," Tuli said. Datawind, which put out a limited 30,000 tablets for sale online with e-commerce provider Ncarry.com, has already exhausted thefirst lot.
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