Masaru Tamagawa at the launch of the Sony’s new LED television in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Aug. 24: Sony’s tablet launch in India will happen simultaneously with the rest of the world.

The Japanese consumer giant is planning to introduce the tablets by the end of this year as it seeks to break the dominance of Apple’s iPad2 and Samsung Galaxy.

Apple products are often available much later in India. The iPad1 came nine months after its US launch, though for the iPad2 the gap was 45 days.

The Sony tablet will have an Android operating system. “We will globally launch the tablet by the end of this year. It will be a totally new category that we will be entering,” said Masaru Tamagawa, managing director of Sony India.

Even though Sony will be a late entrant, senior executives believe the tablet will create a niche and be competitively priced.

“Though competition is high, a lot many things have been considered. Our tablet will have various applications and will be user-friendly. Pricing has not been decided but we can assure that they will be competitive,” a company executive said.

Last month, Sony Corporation had announced that it was developing two tablets, including S1 (codename), which was optimised for media entertainment, and S2 —ideal for mobile communication and entertainment.

The parent company had said it planned to introduce them in the global market towards the end of 2011. The company, along with Adobe System, is running a campaign “Adobe AIR App Challenge” to drive the creation of Android applications for Sony tablets.

Sony today launched 15 LED televisions, of which nine are high-definition 3D systems. Although 3D technology is at a nascent stage in India and 3D programming is still unavailable, the company is confident that its TV sales will increase ten-fold.

“Last year, we sold 5,000 units, but this year we are projecting it to be around 50,000 units. The reason is that we have made the 3D platform much cheaper and made it available in 32-inch sets,” Tamagawa said. A 32-inch television has been priced at Rs 55,000.