Industry research firm IDC confirms tablet mania is in full swing, with 50 million tablets forecast to ship this year, up from just 18 million in 2010. The trajectory is expected to continue next year as well, with IDC forecasting 75 million tablets will ship in 2012. The iPad remains most popular by far, but more competition is on the way.
Looking quarter by quarter, IDC estimates that vendors shipped 10.1 million media tablets worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2010 — more than double the 4.5 million they shipped in Q3. Apple’s iPad accounted for a 73 percent share of the tablet market in the fourth quarter. Samsung’s more recently introduced Galaxy Tab came in a respectable second, capturing more than a 17 percent share.
Global Numbers
Telco operators accounted for nearly 14 percent of all shipments of media tablets in the final quarter of 2010 — up from just 1 percent in the prior three months. Though the United States remained the world’s largest tablet market in the final quarter of last year, Western Europe and the Asia/Pacific, excluding Japan grew almost twice as fast on a sequential basis.
“For 2010, Media Tablet shipments were split 47 percent in the U.S., 30 percent in Western Europe, 13 percent in Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, and the remaining 10 percent in Japan, Canada, Latin America and CEMA (Central Europe and the Middle East),” explained IDC Vice President Loren Loverde.
“We are in process of updating our forecast,” Loverde said, “but expect roughly 50 million media tablets [to ship] in 2011 and 75 million in 2012, with the U.S. accounting for 38 percent and 30 percent, respectively.”
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