VIA's profits in June double from previous month due to tablet sales

While the PC market is feeling the pinch, tablet sales are booming and many component manufacturers are feeling the love, VIA included. A 199.75 percent month-on-month and 168.61 percent year-on-year sales boost for June 2013 has been attributed to sales of tablets to mainland China.

"Industry commentators stated that the popularity of tablets in China is expected to continue expanding. They also expect VIA's performance to exceed its current figures in the third quarter as demand drives up the average selling price for the company's components offerings." - ChinaPost.com.tw

Staggering figures on white-box tablet numbers in China

Once upon a time there was the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy and ... not much else in the market really except for non-branded tablets manufactured in China. Many of them featured VIA Wondermedia chips. The low cost tablets have proven to be extremely popular in China and the latest figures show that this is not slowing down.

"A total of 262 million displays for tablets are forecast to be shipped in 2013, compared to the previous forecast of 246 million, according to a report from IHS. This will represent 69% growth from 155 million in 2012."- Source: X-BitLabs

VIA always saw it coming

Tech media have reported for some time now that PC shipments are down. That crucial mass has now well and truly been met where PC sales have plummeted but personal computing device sales are booming. The broad category of ultra-mobiles, according to Gartner, is up 5.9%.

The catch-phrase word of ultra-mobile was first used with gusto by VIA back in 2006 when the prototype of the UMPC came out - the Ultra Mobile Personal Computer. Time has shown that this is exactly what people want - a full computing experience on a small and mobile device.

7-inch tablets to drop to $40

VIA led the way some years ago with pushing for the sub-$100 mark for 7-inch tablets. VIA's WonderMedia offers single chip solutions that have made low price points a reality for whitebox manufacturers. Digitimes now reports that such models will drop to as low as $40 by the third quarter this year.

"The market for 7-inch tablets is seeing intense competition and white-box vendors are expected to further reduce prices for entry-level models to US$40 in the second half of 2013, according to Taiwan-based supply chain sources."

Tests show solid performance of new WonderMedia dual core SoC

The new WonderMedia WM8880 tested in an unbranded 7-inch tablet shows a mid-range but solid performance in this screenshot:

http://www.decryptedtech.com/news/via-for-cheap-tablets-and-smartphones

New dual core WonderMedia chip surfaces before official launch

WonderMedia has a new dual core ARM processor coming out and its destined for low-cost smartphones and tablet, probably mainly in the Chinese market and possibly in developing countries as well. The reason is that, if unofficial testing is accurate, its performance is about 1/2 that of the top of the line offerings from Qualcomm, Samsung, NVIDIA and the like. But the trade off is the cost of course and there's no shortage of demand for affordable tablets.

"VIA hasn’t added any information about the new chip to its website yet, but the folks at Chinese site 1pad have posted some details and test results from a 7 inch tablet powered by the WM8880 processor. The new processor appears to be very similar to the WM8850 chip which launched last year, but the WM8880 features dual-core graphics while last year’s chip had a single-core Mali 400 GPU." - Source:  Liliputing.com

Does this $100 tablet have VIA WonderMedia inside?

I can't be sure but it's a good bet that this tablet by the well-known brand of Polaroid, is driven by a VIA WonderMedia ARM9 processor and complimentary graphics chip. I make this guess based on the fact that VIA's WonderMedia solution brings to the table the specs and prices mentioned in the ad.

This is an entry-level Android tablet with an entry-level price, available at the discount store in the US, Big Lots.