Telecom Lead India: As Apple reasserts its leadership,
Google Android’s share of worldwide tablet sales will decline to 38.4 percent
in 2012.
After declining to 55.1 percent in Q4 of 2011, the Apple
operating system’s share of worldwide tablet sales will recover to 61 percent
in 2012.
Apple’s dominating media tablet market share in Q4 of
2011 had been diminished by a surge in sales of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet.
This had caused Android’s share of the tablet operating system market to climb
to 41.1 percent, up from 31.1 percent in Q3 of 2011.
The key to Apple’s media-tablet success has been its
offering of a complete hardware-plus-content ecosystem,” said Rhoda Alexander,
director for monitors and tablets research at IHS.
The combination of a good-looking device, well-designed
applications, video, books and music has provided consumers with an easy-to-use
product and an appealing use case. Such an ecosystem took Apple years to put
together, starting with the iPod plus iTunes Music Store more than nine years
ago, and it’s proving to be a challenge for the company’s competitors to
replicate it,” Alexander added.
IHS expects Apple will place continuing emphasis on the
quality of the overall tablet experience and the benefits of selecting the
company’s products.
Sales of tablets this year will surge to 126.6 million
units, up a remarkable 85 percent from 68.4 million units in 2011 and 19.4
million units in 2010.
Tablet sales will rise another 63 percent next year, on
their way to 360.4 million units by 2016.
New ultrabook offerings and the release of Windows 8
later this year will help drive stronger sales in 2013 and beyond of PC-type
tablets, according to IHS.
The growth last year of media tablets dwarfed that of
tablet PCs, and media tablet sales will continue to outperform those of tablet
PCs in 2012.
By next year, tablet PC growth will accelerate to nearly
160 percent, compared to a still-robust 60 percent increase for media tablets.
The PC tablet growth is a form transition within the
larger notebook market and does not reflect any cannibalization of the media
tablet opportunity. This is because PC tablets will still lag well behind their
media tablet counterparts next year, numbering a little over 8 million units
compared to more than 197 million units for media tablets.
