China-based white-box vendors are expected to ship 80-90 million tablets in total in 2013, hiking 60-80% on year, and may ship 100 million units in 2014, up 25% on year, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.

The sources pointed out that they originally expected the US$100 price tag of brand vendors' entry-level 7-inch tablets to put strong pressure on white-box tablet sales, but so far, sales remain strong.

As for global tablet shipments, the sources expect the volume to grow 25-30% on year, a similar scale to that of white-box models.

Some brand vendors pointed out that sub-US$100 tablets are unlikely to be available in the short term and they will not deliberately try to gain demand from the white-box tablet market considering their brand image and the cost of after-sales service.

White-box tablet shipments were 25 million units in the third quarter of 2013, up 56.3% on quarter and 40.4% on year, according to Digitimes Research's latest figures.