IDC: 70.8 Million Media Tablets To Ship By 2012

By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 1/18/2011

Framingham, Mass. - International Data (IDC) today released its first ever report on the media tablet and e-reader markets.

IDC defines a media tablet as a device with a color display, 5 inches to 14 inches in size, and running a lightweight operating system such as Apple's iOS or Android. It can use either an x86 or Arm processor.

The research firm further slices the portable computer market by defining a tablet PC as one running a full operating system and using an x86 processor.

IDC said the media tablet market grew 45.1 percent during the third quarter of 2010. Apple fully dominated the category, shipping 4.2 million units during the period, giving the company an 87.4 percent market share.

The addition of Samsung's Galaxy Tab to the market during the fourth quarter along with Motorola's Xoom and new offerings from RIM will help accelerate the media tablet market during the first quarter of 2011, IDC said.

For 2010, 17 million units shipped worldwide, and this will climb to 44.6 million this year, with the United States being responsible for 40 percent of these purchases, the report stated. IDC's forecast for 2012 sees 70.8 million units shipping.

The e-reader portion of the report had Amazon shipping 1.1 million Kindles during the third quarter, giving the online retailer 41.1 percent of the market.

Pandigital and its Novel e-readers edged out Barnes & Noble for second place on the list, shipping 440,000 units for a 16.1 percent market share. B&N garnered 15.4 percent on 420,000 units shipped.

Sony and Hanvon closed out the top five.

For 2010, IDC said 10.8 million e-readers shipped worldwide, with the United States again leading the adoption of this product, buying 72.4 percent of all units.

This figure is expected to grow to 14.7 million units this year and hit 16.6 million in 2012.

Top 5 Vendors, Worldwide eReader Shipments, Third Quarter 2010

Rank	Vendor	3Q10 Shipments (M)	Market Share (%)
1	Amazon	1.14	41.5%
2	Pandigital	0.44	16.1%
3	Barnes and Noble	0.42	15.4%
4	Sony	0.23	8.4%
4	Hanvon	0.23	8.2%
6	Others	0.29	10.4%