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Apple iPad to help tablet market double in size
IT News |
13/04/2012
The popularity of media tablets will see the global market almost double in size during 2012, one analyst firm has claimed.
Gartner has forecast the sale of 118.9 million units this year, which would represent a 98 per cent rise on the 60 million sold in 2011.
The firm believes Apple will continue to dominate the market, as consumers and businesses choose the iPad over other tablet computers.
According to Gartner projections, the Apple iOS operating system (OS) will account for 61.4 per cent of global sales in 2012, despite Microsoft's entry into the market and the expected rollout of Amazon's Kindle Fire.
"Despite PC vendors and phone manufacturers wanting a piece of the pie and launching themselves into the media tablet market, so far, we have seen very limited success outside of Apple with its iPad," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice-president at Gartner.
"As vendors struggled to compete on price and differentiate enough on either the hardware or ecosystem, inventories were built and only 60 million units actually reached the hands of consumers across the world."
She claimed that the distribution of wealth has not improved in early 2012, with the iPad 3 resetting the benchmark for the product to beat.
Ms Milanesi predicted many vendors will now wait for the launch of Windows 8 before entering the tablet market with a dual-platform approach.
They are hoping the Microsoft brand could help them in both the enterprise and consumer markets, she suggested.
"IT departments will see Windows 8 as the opportunity to deploy tablets on an OS that is familiar to them and with devices offered by many enterprise-class suppliers," Ms Milanesi added.
"This means that we see Windows 8 as a strong IT-supplied offering more so than an OS with a strong consumer appeal."
Posted by John Lynes
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