Google Nexus 7 hits British shops

Google’s new iPad rival, the Nexus 7, goes on sale on British high streets today, but nobody is expecting queues to match those that greet each new version of Apple’s best-selling tablet.

Asus, Google’s Taiwanese manufacturing partner, described the strategy as a “soft launch”. There is no release date as such and online retailers such as eBuyer have been taking orders and shipping the Nexus 7 to Britons since Friday.

Today the biggest remaining bricks and mortar electronics retailers, Currys and PC World, said they would start selling the device, in a test of whether it can become the first Android tablet to break into the mainstream. Efforts by third party manufacturers such as Samsung and Motorola, also sold at the big stores, have so far failed to loosen Apple’s grip on the market.

According to the analysts IDC, the iPad accounted for 68 per cent of sales in the first quarter of 2012. Even more concerning for Google, which created Android to drive mobile traffic to its main search engine business, there is evidence that Android tablets often go unused: 95 per cent of tablet web traffic comes from iPads.

That picture may account for Google's decision to risk alienating Android manufacturers by competing with them itself.

A spokesman for Google said it did not intend to follow Apple’s strategy of 'big bang' launches for the Nexus 7, which witness enthusiasts camped outside stores, sometimes for several nights.