As it is difficult to make profit from tablets, Asustek Computer has decided to reduce the number of new models to be launched in 2015, and Samsung Electronics and Lenovo are also likely to do so, according to sources from Taiwan's chain.

Tablets now hardly offer profits because global demand is approaching saturation, competition from large-screen smartphones and inexpensive notebooks is increasing, and pricing competition for tablets is fierce, the sources said.

Asustek is expected to ship 10 million tablets in 2014, but its tablet business operation will roughly break even because inexpensive models will take up a large portion of the shipments, the sources indicated. Amazon, Sony and Toshiba have suffered losses from the tablet business, the sources noted.

White-box tablet vendors may withdraw from the global market amid keen pricing competition in the first half of 2015, the sources indicated.