Apparently everyone wants a tablet. According the the International Data Corporation (IDC) tablet sales are up 303.8% year-over-year and 88.9% quarter-over-quarter. Those numbers include both the sales of the iPad and all Android based tablets.
The IDC reported in a press release that 13.6 million tablets were shipped this past quarter. That number pushed the group to bump the 2011 shipment forecast from 53.5 million up to 62.5 million. Apple's iPad still holds the market share of tablets with 9.3 million units shipped. That gives Apple 68.3% of the tablet market. Android tablets fell to 26.8% market share but the IDC is expecting that number to rebound in the fourth quarter of this year and continue to climb next year.
“Media tablet shipments grew at a solid pace in the second quarter, led by continued strong demand for Apple products,” IDC mobile connected devices research director Tom Mainelli said. “We expect shipment totals to continue to grow in the third and fourth quarter, as additional vendors introduce more price-competitive Android products into the market and Apple works to maintain its dominance in the category.”
The IDC release points to the introduction of more Android tablets as the catalyst that will increase Android's market share and drive Apple's hold on the market down. Apple's share is projected to drop to 50% close to the end of this year.
"Apple's iOS share will continue to lead by more than 40 percentage points over Google's Android for the remainder of the year, but we expect Apple's share to fall closer to 50% by the end of the forecast period as manufacturers bring new tablets to market," said Jennifer Song, research analyst, Worldwide Trackers.
The release also had a bit to say about eReaders which have seen growth to the tune of 167% year-over-year. Most of that market seems to be dominated by Amazon who holds a strong 51.7%. Barnes and Noble comes in a distant second with 21.2% of the market. IDC is projecting that eReader sales will grow through the holiday season and even goes so far as to predict that current black and white eReaders will be dropped down to a $100 price point.
What's more the release goes on to classify the Amazon tablet as an eReader because IDC feels the feature set is more inline with the Nook Color than an iPad.
“We expect major vendors to offer their current-generation black-and-white eReaders for less than $100 by the holidays,” Mainelli said. “We’re also expecting Amazon’s much-rumored, color LCD-based device to ship later this year. Because we expect it to run a customized version of Android that ties its use to Amazon’s content services, we expect the device to more closely resemble Barnes & Noble’s Color Nook than Apple’s iPad 2. As aresult, our current plan is to count it as an eReader, and that will also help drive shipment numbers.”
It's positive to see tablets and eReaders doing well, especially considering the economic situation worldwide. It would be interesting to see if these rising tablet and eReader sales impact laptop sales. One would think that most people don't need both a tablet and a laptop, especially if their primary use is web browsing and viewing pictures.
