Tablet Devices Poised For Global Growth, Agree IDC, Forrester

By Doug Olenick and John Laposky On Jan 24 2011 - 6:01am

NEW YORK — Two more research firms have released studies of the tablet device market, and both are forecasting explosive global growth in the category over the next few years.

International Data’s (IDC) first-ever report on the media tablet market cited growth of 45.1 percent globally 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.

Growth in 2011 and beyond will be driven by device vendors introducing media tablets based on Android and other operating systems, as well as price and feature competition and strong demand in both the consumer and commercial segments.

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.

Meantime, Forrester released its fiveyear snapshot of the media tablet market for the United States, forecasting sales of 24.1 million in 2011 and reaching 44 million units by 2015.

The category’s year-over-year growth rate should mirror that of the first five years of portable MP3 player sales, the firm said.

Forrester expects that by 2015, there will be 82.1 million tablet users in the U.S.

At International CES in January, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) predicted massive global growth in the mobile computing category being driven by the tablet market. CEA expects $26 billion more revenue being generated by the whole category in 2011 than in 2010.