Sales to touch 46 million units in 2014
If prophet Moses was to rewrite the ‘Ten Commandments’ on Mount Sinai today, he would not have to necessarily etch his words in stone. He would have a plethora of options — a notebook, netbook, or even a tablet PC like Apple’s iPad. And, if predictions are on the dot, the tablet would provide stiff competition to notebooks and netbooks with over 100 new products hitting the market by end 2011.
Consumer electronic majors Apple, Samsung, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Fijitsu, IBM, LG Electronics, Toshiba and Panasonic have either introduced or are on the verge of launching these devices. India, too, has its own Adam Tablet which is yet to hit the market.
Panasonic has developed a new smart terminal, the VIERA Tablet, for easy access to a variety of cloud services along with its VIERA digital televisions. The VIERA Tablet, that will hit the market this year, marks Panasonic’s first step toward cloud-based services, including video streaming and e-books.
Samsung also announced at the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) that its Galaxy Tab recently crossed the 1.5 million global shipment milestone. It said a Wi-Fi-only version of Galaxy Tab will be available in the US in 2011.
The global appeal of Apple’s iPad (sold 7.5 million at the end of last quarter) is simultaneously overtaking others to enter the fold. “Without doubt, 2011 will be the year of the tablet. Apple’s launch of the iPad has left an undeniable print on the mobile computing space. After a decade with minimal success, a tablet computing device is (finally) garnering mass market appeal,” said Shawn Dubravac, CFA, Chief Economist and Director of Research, Consumer Electronics Association.
By 2015, 82 million US consumers – one-third of US online users – will use a tablet, said Forrester analyst Sara Rotman Epps.
Depending on the categories that research firms devise, the iPad could either be a tablet PC or a media tablet PC. IDC, for instance, defines media tablets as tablet-form factor devices with seven- to 12-inch colour displays. They are currently based on ARM processors and run lightweight operating systems (OSes) such as Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android OS. This distinguishes them from tablet PCs, which are based on x86 processors and run full PC OSes.
Gartner, on its part, defines a tablet PC as having a touchscreen size of five inches or more, with a full-function operating system such as Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP or Mac OS X. A media tablet is defined as a device that has a screen size of five inch or larger but with a restricted-function OS, such as iPhone, Android or Chrome. They support touch and run a lightweight OS such as iOS, Android, WebOS or Meego. Examples of media tablets are the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Cisco Cius.
Definitions apart, research firm IDC predicts worldwide media tablet shipments will grow from 7.6 million units in 2010 to more than 46 million units in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 57.4 per cent. Driven by sales of the iPad, worldwide media tablet sales to end users are forecast to reach 19.5 million units in 2010, said Gartner.
Media tablets are poised for strong growth with worldwide end user sales projected to total 54.8 million units in 2011 — up 181 per cent from 2010, and surpass 208 million units in 2014. Gartner analysts say the impact of media tablets on other devices will vary among segments. “The all-in-one nature of media tablets will result in the cannibalisation of other consumer electronics devices such as e-readers, gaming devices and media players,” says Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Mini notebooks will suffer from the strongest cannibalisation threat as media tablet average selling prices drop below $300 over the next two years.”
The author, on a sabbatical from Business Standard, is an MIT Knight Science Journalism Research Fellow 2010-11
