Following Microsoft's announcement of its new Surface tablet, LG Electronics said it has decided to put its tablet development efforts on hold in order to focus on smartphones.
LG spokesman Ken Hong, in an email to the Bloomberg news service on Monday, wrote, "We've decided to put all new tablet development on the back burner for the time being in order to focus on smartphones."
Hong also told Bloomberg that "LG doesn't see Surface competing with anything we're focusing on at the moment."
LG makes a dual-core Android Honeycomb tablet called the Optimus Pad for T-Mobile USA. It has also announced the Optimus Pad LTE, but that device has not yet shipped. The Optimus Pad, also called the G-Slate, originally sold for $529, but the price was later reduced to $399. Apple's iPad starts at $499.
LG is considered a small player in the tablet market. Samsung is the largest maker of Android tablets. The iPad dominates the market, with a more than 60% share.
There are dozens of tablet models on the market, and analysts have long predicted consolidation, even though Microsoft has just joined the fray with the announcement of its Surface tablets.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.
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