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GfKRT: Peripherals "Bouyant" in the Gulf

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According to GfKRT the IT peripheral market remain positive in the Arabian Gulf (UAE and Saudi Arabia), with Q1 2012 sales growing by $1.03m over Q1 2011.

Arabian GulfSaudi Arabia is the "main driver" behind such growth, thanks to an increase in volume sales for 3 segments-- webcams, keyboards and mice.

Webcams are the slowest growing segment within the Gulf, with average customer spend remaining flat ($21, the same as in 2009) while volume sales drop.

The average customer spend per sale on mice is also dropping, mainly due to mice being included in bundle offers together with notebooks and netbooks. However mouse sales grow during promotional periods, such as GITEX and the Dubai Shopping Festival, GfKRT says.

Meanwhile the keyboard market also finds "relative volume sales success" during promotional periods, with the Dubai Shopping Festival 2012 showing the strongest keyboard monthly volume sales for the last 3 years.

The majority of keyboard market volume (90%) goes for keyboards, but a growing tablet market represents "strong potential" for peripheral sales later this year.

Go The Arabian Gulf: IT Peripherals Remain Buoyant (GfKRT)

Kodak Intros Budget All-in-One Printer

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Kodak launches the ESP 3.2-- an entry-level all-in-one printer/scanner combo with a feature set ideal for mobile device users.

ESP 3.2The package not only offers scanning, copying and printing, but also handles wireless printing tasks. It lacks an ethernet port, connecting to PCs via USB and wifi.

Wireless printing comes through Google Cloud Print, Kodak's email printing service and Pic Flick app (available on Blackberry, iOS and Android devices).

The printer also features a 2.4" LCD touchscreen (handling slight photo editing tasks), SD card slot and a USB port.

Go Kodak ESP 3.2 All-in-One

Apple on Top in Mobile PCs

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NPD DisplaySearch reports global Q1 2012 mobile PC shipments reach 76.2m units with 30% Y-o-Y growth as tablets dominate the market and notebooks decline.

mobile PCsTablets show 124% Y-o-Y growth, while notebooks and mini-notebooks grow by just 12%.

When it comes to vendors, Apple and HP remain on top-- Apple has 22.5% of the total WW mobile PC market with shipments reaching 17.2m units (80% of which being iPads). HP shipments total 8.9m units with 11.6% market share.

The following vendors (Acer, Lenovo, Dell) continue relying on notebooks to boost shipments.

Things are slightly different in the tablet market-- according to DisplaySearch Apple absolutely dominates with 62.8% market share. Following are Samsung (7.5%) and Amazon (4%), while RIM and Asus tablet shipments drop even further.

Go NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Market Report

Nvidia Aims At Low-End Tablets

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An interesting snippet emerges from the Nvidia annual stockholders' meeting-- the company is working on Kai, a "strategy" (if not a reference design) for cheaper, more powerful tablets carrying Tegra 3 processors.

Nvidia KaiAs VP Rob Csonger says "Our strategy on Android is simply to enable quad-core tablets running Android Ice Cream Sandwich to be developed and brought out to market at the $199 price point."

A means for vendors to beef up the Kindle Fire competitors, then? Perhaps. But back at CES 2012 Nvidia presented the ME370T, a quad-core tablet co-developed with Asus with a $250 price point.

We haven't anything about the ME370T since then-- perhaps it will be reborn with Kai branding? If not, Nvidia might simply usher a new range of cheaper Tegra 3-powered tablets.

Go Nvidia Annual Stockholders Meeting

The Chinese Android Mini-PC

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Customers longing for a tiny PC the size of a USB stick (such as the FXI Cotton Candy or Raspberry Pi) now have the Rikomagic MK802 Android-powered option.

Rikomagic mini CPIt carries an AllWinner A10 1.5GHz CPU and a Mali 400 GPU supporting 1080p video-out through HDMI port. It uses Android 4.0, but users can also install ARM-compatible Linux versions.

Weighing less than 200g, the MK802 also has 4GB of internal flash storage, a microSD card slot and x2 USB ports (full-size and micro). Connectivity comes via wifi.

It currently appears to be available only through Chinese resellers for all of $74.

Go Rikomagic MK802

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