Gartner Pegs 2011 Tablet Sales at 63.6 Million
Gartner forecasts that global tablet sales will rise 261.4 percent year over year, to 63.6 million units in 2011 -- and with Apple accounting for 73.4 percent of the total by shipping 46.7 million iPad units.
Moreover, Android OS tablets are expected to account for 17.3 percent of the remaining sales this year. No other platform is projected to grab more than a 5 percent share of the market in 2011, the firm's analysts said.
Looking ahead to 2012, Gartner expects Apple to capture a 66.7 percent market share by shipping 69 million iPads. By comparison, Android tablet shipments are forecast to reach 22.8 million unit shipments and a 22 percent market share next year.
Gartner also expects continuing strong growth for tablet shipments through 2015, when total sales are forecast to reach 326.3 million units -- and with Apple continuing to hold in excess of a 50 percent market share until 2014.
"This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services," said Gartner research Vice President Carolina Milanesi. "Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple's position will be minimal."
Struggling To Meet Apple's Pricing
Hitting the same sweet spot as Apple -- where quality, performance and pricing converge -- has been a major challenge for Apple's rivals.
"Apple had the foresight to create this market and in doing that planned for it as far as component supplies such as memory and screen," Milanesi said. "This allowed Apple to bring the iPad out at a very competitive price and no compromise in experience among the different models that offer storage and connectivity options."
By contrast, consumer demand for Android-based tablets has been constrained to date by the limited availability of compatible applications, Android's weak user interface and high prices. "Most of Apple's competitors are struggling to meet Apple's prices without considerably sacrificing margins," said Roberta Cozza, a principal analyst at Gartner.
Screen quality and processing power are the two hardware features that other tablet vendors cannot afford to compromise on, Cozza noted. "They should consider everything else 'nice to have,' rather than essential, in order to keep bills-of-materials costs competitive with those of the iPad," Cozza advised.
Disrupting the Market
In the long run, Milanesi thinks Amazon could conceivably disrupt the tablet market by launching new models that are considerably cheaper -- perhaps as low as $199 -- than what is currently offered by tablet vendors. Amazon then could monetize the devices from the content they sell.
"Amazon [is] a brand that consumers trust and a merchant that already owns many consumers' credit-card information," Milanesi said. This gives Amazon "a better opportunity to differentiate than most tablet manufacturers today in key markets such as North America and selected countries in Europe."
Though the launch of an Amazon tablet would undoubtedly have some effect on Apple's iPad shipment numbers, "the main impact will actually be on other Android players who are still lacking the strong ecosystem to support their hardware," Milanesi said in an email Thursday.
Given that Amazon is not in the business of making revenue from hardware -- and neither is Google -- Gartner's analysts wonder whether a conflict of interest may arise over time that would make it difficult for Amazon to continue leveraging Google's Android ecosystem.
"If Amazon fears that could be the case, it should invest in its own operating system -- - possibly webOS -- - as soon as possible," Milanesi said. "A lot of resources have already been spent on the current Android ecosystem and waiting would make any transition even more difficult."
