Revenue from global tablet sales is expected to reach $49 billion by 2015, helped largely by sales from Asia, according to a new Strategy Analytics report.
Global
tablet revenues are now expected to reach $49 billion by 2015, according to an
April 19 report from
Strategy
Analytics. Up from zilch in 2009, 2015 global revenues from the Apple iPad
and its legion of followers, said the research firm, "will exceed those of
every consumer electronics category except TVs and PCs by 2015."
Markets
in North America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe are expected to lead this
massive growth in tablet revenue.
"Tablets
are a high-value casual-computing segment that is creating huge growth
opportunities for major brands such as Apple and Samsung," Strategy
Analytics Director Neil Mawston said in a statement.
"We
predict 80 percent of the value of the tablet market in 2015 will reside in
both high-tier and entry-tier models, as tablets address the opportunities in
other developed and emerging markets such as the Asia Pacific region," Mawston
added.
In
a Feb. 14 report, Morgan Stanley further highlighted Asia's expected role in
the market's growth, estimating that over the next 12 months,
China
will account for 41 percent of tablet shipments. The United States,
following behind sales from Japan and much of Europe, was slated to account for
11 percent.
Strategy
Analytics Associate Director Martin Bradley appears to concur. "In terms
of revenues, the largest opportunity for tablet vendors will be in North
America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe," he said in the statement.
"Although the average selling prices in Asia Pacific will be less than 85
percent of those in Western Europe by 2015, the total value of the Asia Pacific
region will exceed Western Europe by this time."
While
this year's tablet market promises to be packed with competitors from PC giants
Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Sony, Lenovo and Dell, as well as smartphone makers
Samsung, Motorola, HTC and Research In Motion, the Apple iPad-the device that
reinvented the form factor and launched the market-is expected to continue to
dominate, at least according to Gartner.
Apple's
lead will likely be shortened by its competitors, Gartner analysts forecast in
an April 11 report, but by 2015 they expect Apple to still command 47 percent
market share. Android, meanwhile-the mobile OS of choice for the bulk of the
pack-is expected to rise from 2010's 24 percent to 39 percent by 2015.
Manufacturers
are making the same mistakes they made in response to the first iPhone,
"as they are prioritizing hardware features over applications, services
and overall user experience," Gartner Vice President Carolina Milanesi
said in the report. "Tablets will be much more dependent on the latter
than smartphones have been, and the sooner vendors realize that, the better
chance they have to compete head-to-head with Apple."
RBC
analyst Mike Abramsky,
in
a March 4 report, put 2014 tablet shipment estimates at 185 million units.
By 2014, Abramsky wrote, 400 million people will own tablets and Android will
account for 40 percent of the tablet market share, thanks, in part, to
"budget-priced Android tablets from Asia."
Apple,
he added, will follow Google in 2014, with an estimated 34 percent market
share. Behind it will come Microsoft, with a 13 percent share; RIM's BlackBerry
OS, at 8 percent; and HP's webOS, at 5 percent.
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