经济学人下载:平板电脑 太多啦

Business
商业报道

Tablet computers
平板电脑

Overdose
太多啦

The market for tablets has already split into two
平板市场已经一分为二了

NOKIA is going out with a flourish.
诺基亚带着一个惊人消息出现了。

In Abu Dhabi on October 22nd, at its last launch party before the sale of its mobile-phone division to Microsoft, the Finnish company showed off its first tablet.
10月22日，在阿布扎比，在诺基亚将其移动业务卖给微软之前的最后一次发布会上，这个芬兰公司发布了其首款平板。

Like Nokia's smartphones, the Lumia 2520 uses a version of the American firm's Windows operating system.
和诺基亚智能机一样，Lumia 2520使用了美国公司的Windows操作系统。

New models of Microsoft's own Surface tablets, announced last month, went on sale the same day.
微软上个月发布的自己研发的新款Surface平板在同一天发售。

Microsoft and Nokia are aiming at the dearer end of the tablet market, which is dominated by Apple's iPad.
微软和诺基亚力都争平板市场高端客户群，而这个市场目前是由苹果的iPad主导的。

Microsoft has already had a false start. In July it wrote off 900m to reflect poor sales of the Surface RT.
微软已经有了一个错误的开端。六月，微软亏损了9亿美元证明了其Surface RT的惨淡销售。

As if to remind Microsoft of what it is up against, a few hours after Nokia's launch Apple unveiled the iPad Air, which is thinner and lighter than its predecessors, and an upgraded iPad mini.
好像是为了提醒微软它遇到了什么问题，诺基亚发布平板后几小时，苹果就发布了比旧机型更薄更轻的iPad Air，以及升级的iPad mini。

Just as remarkable as the iPad's success, however, is the proliferation of cheaper imitators.
和iPad的成功一样显著的是廉价的仿冒品的激增。

A mere three-and-a-half years after the first iPad was sold, the market for tablets already has a premium and a budget end, like that for cars.
首款iPad推出后短短三年，就像汽车市场一样，平板市场也已经出现了质优的和价优的分化。

The cheap models, most of which have seven- or eight-inch screens against the standard iPad's ten, use Google's Android operating system and are sold for as little as 100 or less.
廉价机型，大多数是7英寸或8英寸屏幕而非苹果标准10英寸的屏幕，使用谷歌的安卓系统，售价只有100美元左右。

The least expensive iPad Air and the Lumia 2520 will be sold for 499 and Microsoft's Surface 2 for 449.
iPad Air和Lumia 2520最低售价为499美元，微软Surface 2最少为449美元。

In the second quarter of this year, according to IHS, a research firm, 43.6m tablets were shipped.
根据调查公司IHS公司的报告，今年第二季度，已有4360万台平板上市。

Of those, 14.6m were iPads, which use Apple's operating system for mobile devices, iOS.
其中，1460万台是使用苹果移动设备操作系统ios的iPad。

Only 1.7m ran Windows.
只有170万台使用Windows系统。

Almost all the others were Android machines.
剩下几乎都是使用Android系统的设备。

Some bear well-known brands.
有一些是著名的品牌。

South Korea's Samsung had the biggest single share.
韩国的三星独家占有最大市场份额。

Amazon, a giant online retailer whose tablets use a customised version of Android, Taiwan's Acer and ASUS, and China's Lenovo also had fair slices.
使用定制安卓系统的网上零售商巨头亚马逊的平板，台湾的宏基和华硕，还有中国的联想也拥有相同的份额。

But 13.9m out of the 27.2m Android tablets shipped were made by dozens upon dozens of others.
但是上市的2720万台安卓系统的平板中，有1390万台是由许多制造商制造的。

Entry at the bottom is as easy as it is hard at the top, with margins that reflect perfect competition rather than near-monopoly.
利润显示了当前完全竞争而非近乎垄断的状态，到达市场的顶端是困难的从市场底端进入市场是很容易的。

Rhoda Alexander of IHS reckons that smaller manufacturers will feel really flush if they scrape a margin of 4 a unit.
公司IHS的Rhoda Alexander认为如果小型制造商勉强获得每个4美元的利润会觉得很有钱。

Some sellers of cheap Androids in any case expect to make their money in other ways.
一些廉价的安卓系统的平板不管怎么样都希望通过其他途径来获利。

Amazon makes little if anything from its tablets.
如果一定要说它获利了的话，亚马逊在其平板上获利很少。

Its aim is to sell stuff online.
它的目标是推销线上产品。

The same will surely apply to Tesco, Britain's largest supermarket chain, which recently started selling its own tablet, the Hudl, for ￡119 (193)—or less if you use loyalty points.
这个方式当然也适用于英国最大连锁超市乐购，乐购最近开始销售其自主开发的平板Hudl，这款平板售价为119英镑-如果你使用忠诚积分的话更便宜。

The Hudl is preloaded with Tesco's shopping apps and with blinkbox, its pay-as-you-go film-and-TV service.
它内置了乐购的购物软件以及其现购现付电影电视服务blinkbox。

Ben Wood of CCS Insight, another research firm, reckons that North America already has two tablets for every five people.
另一家调查公司CCS Insight的Ben Wood认为在北美每五个人拥有两台平板。

Cheap devices, he thinks, are often bought for children who covet a parent's iPad.
他认为廉价的设备通常都是买来给觊觎父母的iPad的孩子的。

The two-car family took decades to arrive.
一家两辆车的时代经历了数十年才来临。

The two-tablet family has taken three years.
一个家庭两台平板的时代只用了三年的时间就实现了。