119 Million Tablets To Ship This Year: Gartner

By Doug Olenick On Apr 23 2012 - 4:01am

STAMFORD, CONN. – Gartner is forecasting media tablet sales of 118.9 million for 2012, a 98 percent increase over 2011.

Apple will continue to dominate the category, garnering 61.4 percent share this year, although Android-based tablets will slightly close the gap, with 31.9 percent of the market.

A lack of dedicated tablet Android apps is still hindering this category, Gartner said.

Devices using Microsoft’s Windows 8 will make their appearance this year, but these will have a minimal impact, accounting for about 4 percent of the market, Gartner said. This will grow to 11.8 percent in 2016.

“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, Gartner’s research VP.

Additional competitors to the iPad will appear later this year when Windows 8 launches. Gartner believes that at that time vendors will bring out dual-platform devices that can be used for consumer and enterprise applications.

Eventually, enterprise sales will account for about 35 percent of all tablet sales, Gartner said.