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Hardware makers who thought the netbook market would prove a short-lived fad ended up kicking themselves in the backside for not striking when the coals were hot. But on the bright side, they've been given a mulligan. The most talked about tech item is now the tablet PC, and according to market research firm DisplaySearch, this segment will show an explosive 200 percent growth rate this year. For those who haven't jumped on the tablet bandwagon, now's the time to do so.
"The upcoming product announcements, introductions, and demonstrations in the coming weeks will build on the tremendous momentum that the market has already seen and will lead to segmentation in the tablet (slate) PC market," said Richard Shim, mobile computing analyst for DisplaySearch. "This segmentation translates to significant shipment growth and proliferation in the short and long term."
By the end of the year, DisplaySearch figures the tablet market will have grown by 55.7 million units. Dominating these device sales will be 7-inch wide, 10-inch standard, and 10-inch wide models.
At the same time, DisplaySearch says "the significant growth of slates is expected to cannibalize the mini-note and notebook mobile PC categories,," though this will vary by region. It will be most noticeable in mature markets where PC penetration rates are the highest, DisplaySearch predicts, and negligible in emerging markets.
"The overall result will be an increase in the mobile PC category" to the tune of 30.4 percent, DisplaySearch says.
Comments are closed on this article
michaelnomad
February 07, 2011 at 4:58pm
Tablets wouldn't really be cannibalizing netbook sales. They would be eating into netbook sales, but --
Sorry the anti-nitpicking police are at the door. I must flee!
Silver925
February 07, 2011 at 2:26pm
People who will be willing to purchase a tablet in place of a Laptop PC are one of two main groups.
Someone who is caught up in the 'gee whiz' factor and not understanding (Read: testing) the limitations of touch screen technonogy. Keyboard+Mouse > Touchscreen: for most productivity applicatons.
Or, someone who wants a simpler device and understands what they are loosing by going the tablet route. Odds are they are already using a device with a built-in keyboard, but have little use for the KB, since they're using the device mostly for media.
Tablets have their place, but anyone who thinks they will canabalize any of the 'productivity' market does not have their finger on the pulse of technology, in my opinion. The only market share Tablets will absorbe is the market that has been using protable devices 'like tablets' (Since they didn't exist), and want a device that IS a Tablet.
Just my $0.02.
Obsidian
February 07, 2011 at 11:06am
I don't think this is good advice. It sounds like it came from the hardware manufacturers. This is the first generation of tablets. Waiting for at least the second generation with better graphics abilities and more connectivity options makes sense and I believe that MaxPC has actually advocated as much.
"For those who haven't jumped on the tablet bandwagon, now's the time to do so."
I don't think the quote above should be regarded very highly. Tablets are great for web surfers, but so far they're not all they could be for productivity and media consumption. Once they get the ability to run Office, and have HDMI and DVI ports then they'll get closer to the devices they can be.
They are coming, but they haven't arrived yet...
Bluntknife
February 07, 2011 at 10:32am
More projection reports on tablet growth from people who have never tried to type an essay on a touchscreen.
