That’s 109 million branded tablets, obviously, not the cheap unbranded ones. While the total tally for 2012 is still being computed, it has not stopped analysts from making a prediction for this year.
While different market analysts have floated up different estimates, all are nine figure — meaning consumers and businesses will be more and more welcoming to this new mobile platform. New market entrants along with even more affordable designs will lead to this increase.
The statisticians over at ABI Research have floated a much higher number, though, at 145 million units.
According to the firm, as much as 19 percent of the estimated figure will land in the hands of business users, a healthy proportion signaling the corporate acceptance of the tablet form factor.
On the other hand, the wizards over at Digitimes Research believe that the estimate is closer to 109 million units for this year. Not quite as high as ABI Research, but still a dazzling number nonetheless.
In fact, market watchers believe that the overall shipments for this year were also in the 109 million range, whereby Apple’s iPad managed 21 million units in the fourth quarter, while other models (Google, Amazon, B&N and Microsoft) managed 22.2 million.
For the full year, the percentages are 58.7 percent for iPad and 38.8 percent for Android based slates.
But analysts believe that there may be a change in players — NVIDIA was late in launching Tegra 4 and is paying the price, while Texas Instruments is struggling as it fired workers. These voids could be filled by MediaTek and Qualcomm.
Either way, 2013 looks set to continue the tablet revolution in full flow. How much Windows powered tablets ultimately figure in these estimates remains to be seen, however.
What about you guys, if you are yet to ride the tablet wagon, is there a tablet for you in the above estimates? Better yet, let everyone know what your choice is going to be in the comments section.
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