Picture courtesy of HP.com

Apple’s iPad has dominated the tablet market, but Amazon’s Kindle Fire is likely the iPad’s biggest competitor, according to Nicole Dee’s blog post. I believe that would be the case, as the Kindle Fire has great specifications and features that rival the iPad, like the dual-core processor. However, Hewlett-Packard (HP)’s Touchpad has taken the No. 2 spot in the tablet market right before the Kindle Fire’s launch.

Recently, HP announced the discontinuation and decided to slash off $300 for their tablet: from $399 to $99 for a 16GB version. As the news hit the internet, consumers were scrambling around, trying to obtain one. According to the blog Fast Company, the HP Touchpad has became the second best selling tablet, behind Apple’s iPad.

As Fast Company noted, the main reason why the Touchpad was able to claim this spot was because of the price cut. Slashing $300 off the tablet was an incentive for consumers to purchase the product at a frightening pace. However, the HP Touchpad costs around $318 to make, according to iSuppli‘s teardown of the device.

Is this HP’s strategy, or is the Touchpad done for real? Most likely, it’s a mix of both.

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