"After three years of development, the global tablet market reached merely 1.3% year-on-year growth in 2014, due mainly to the increasingly saturated market and lack of eye-catching innovations," says Joen Yang, senior industry analyst with MIC.

Yang further explains, application processors for tablets can be clearly segmented based on price criterion. While international brands often opt for energy-efficient processors from Nvidia and Intel for their mid-range and high-end products, Chinese white-box tablets targeting the mid-range and value-line market users often run on processors from MediaTek and Chinese suppliers such as Allwinner, Rockchip, and Amlogic.

Apple and Samsung's tablets come with own custom application processors. Thus far, the share of international branded tablets using China-made application processors remains insignificant.

Figure 1