iPad still dominatrix but Android is a rising tab star, say analysts, as eReader sales jump 157%. The portable slate will also eat in to PC market, by 15% by year end.
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Tab and eReader shipments rose a startling 303.8% year-on-year globally in Q2 ’11, according to analysts IDC.
This “strong performance” has pushed forecasts for the second half of the year to 62.5m – almost one fifth of the number of PC’s shipped.
This means a total of 13.6 m “media tablets” shipped over the quarter – a massive figure for the PC category ushered in just over a year ago by the installation of iPad.
This comes as PC sales rose just 3% in the period to 357m as tabs appear to have be eating into its market, with consumers opting for the super portability tabs bring.
So, who were the big winners at the tills? Apple’s iPad 2 sales were “robust” bien sur accounting for 68.3% of all tabs sold (9.7m) but Android is the rising star, say analysts. Although they predict a dip in demand this quarter with the release of BlackBerry’s Playbook and HP’s discounted TouchPad, which Harvey Norman sold for $98, to increase non-Google demand.
iPads are still the dominatrix with its share even rising 2.5% more in the period and growing, so Android Honeycomb and Co will have their work cut out to gain a bigger slice of the tab pie.
However, its not the end of the road for the likes of the Samsung Tab 10.1 and Asus Eee Pads with demand expected to pick up in Q4, increasing to almost 26%.
BlackBerry who entered the media tablet market for the first time this quarter with the PlayBook, grabbed 4.9% of the total market, although some analysts predict bad time aheads.”
Read RIM BlackBerry PlayBook Heading To The Tablet Graveyard Here
“Apple’s strength and RIM’s entrance meant bad news for Android-based media tablets, which saw its collective share slip to 26.8%, down from 34.0% the previous quarter.
“IDC expects Android to cede additional market share in 3Q11 (dropping to 23%) before it starts growing its share again in 4Q11 (increasing to 25.9%) and beyond.
And consumers who were on the fence about buying a tablet will also jump off to nab the bargain $99 TouchPads, the analysts predict a million to be shipped by the end of 2011, accounting for 4.7%.
“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.” said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices.
“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 analyst Jennifer Song.
eReader demand also slipped 9% in the period, which IDC called a “seasonal dip” although shipments rose a phenomenal 157% y-o-y.
Amazon Kindle led the market with a 51.7%, followed by Barnes & Noble with 21.2%.
And strong discounting is ahead say analysts, pushing shipments predictions to 27.0 m for 2011 – 10m more than previous estimations.
“We expect major vendors to offer their current-generation black-and-white eReaders for less than $100 by the holidays.”
In relation to Amazon’s forthcoming LCD slate, IDC said itexpect it to run a “customized version of Android that ties its use to Amazon’s content services. ”
Amazons latest trick will also closely resemble Barnes & Noble’s Color Nook rather than Apple’s iPad 2, and will count it as an eReader when measuring sales.
“eReaders are also gaining traction with a combination of increasing function and affordability, as well as greater device and content availability.”
