Do You Think Tablet will Outsell Netbook?

According to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc, the sell of Tablet pc will reach at 19.5 million worldwide by the end of the year 2010. The Research farm further said that Tablet is poised for a strong growth in the forthcoming years. The estimate is total sales of 54.8 million units in 2011, up 181 percent from 2010 and will surpass 208 million units in 2014. Tablets are those slate devices that support touch and run a lightweight OS such as iOS, Android, WebOS or Meego. Examples of media tablets are the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Cisco Cius.

“The all-in-one nature of media tablets will result in the cannibalization of other consumer electronics devices such as e-readers, gaming devices and media players,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Mini notebooks will suffer from the strongest cannibalization threat as media tablet average selling prices (ASPs) drop below $300 over the next 2 years.”

However, Gartner speculated that low-end consumer notebooks will only marginally suffer from the strong growth of tablet PC.  Those low-end notebook will experience most of the impact  from 7-inch media tablets on high-end smartphones as an user may not justify keeping both when the real difference in usage model is very limited.

According to Gartner, North America will account for 61 per cent of media tablet sales in 2010. Howver, North America’s share of media tablet sales will drop  to 43 per cent in 2014 because those devices will be available gradually at more markets. In 2010, celluar/Wi-Fi media tablets will account for 55 per cent of sales, and by 2014, celluar/Wi-Fi media tablets will account for 80 per cent of sales. The research further revealed that 10-inch media tablets will play a role in the enterprise market.

“Communication service providers (CSPs) who have so far subsidized mini-notebooks to drive mobile broadband uptake will shift their marketing spend to media tablets. Such subsidies will help drive adoption among those consumers who see the initial hardware cost as a hurdle,” Milanesi said.