Google started selling its Nexus 7 tablet in Japan, deepening the competition with Sony, the Japanese hardware maker whose tablets also run on the world's number one search engine's operating system.
By taking a greater role in the tablet arena, Google hopes to ensure its online services remain at the forefront for consumers, as tablets increasingly become gateways to the Web and Web-based content such as movies and music.
Sales of the 7-inch 16-megabit tablet began on the Google Play Web site on Tuesday, with a starting price of 19 800 yen ($250). The device will be available in retail stores from 2 October.
Japan is the first country in Asia outside Australia to sell the device. According to the Google Play page, it's already available in France, Germany, Spain, Canada, the UK and the US.
Google's Android operating system on smartphones and devices now has over 500 million users, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said, adding that he predicts that growth in the smartphone market will lead to a boom in new start-ups around shopping in Japan.
"It is the defining platform and the defining battle in our industry," Schmidt said at a briefing in Tokyo.
The tablet market is dominated by Apple and its iPad, which represented about 70% of global sales in the second quarter, and includes Amazon.com's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook and Samsung Electronic's Galaxy Tab.
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