Gartner Expects Apple to Dominate Tablet Market This Holiday Season

Posted on September 23, 2011

Gartner reported in a press release that it expects Apple's tablet dominance to continue this holiday season. That's a good bet. They project tablet sales are on pace to total 63.6 million units, a 261.4% increase from 2010 sales of 17.6 million units. Gartner projects tablet sales will soar to 326.3 million units in 2015.

Gartner says Apple's iPad tablet will account for 73.4 percent of worldwide media tablet sales in 2011, down from 83 percent share in 2010.

Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, says, "We expect Apple to maintain a market share lead throughout our forecast period by commanding more than 50 percent of the market until 2014. This is because Apple delivers a superior and unified user experience across its hardware, software and services. Unless competitors can respond with a similar approach, challenges to Apple's position will be minimal. 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. 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.”

Amazon is expected to announce an Android tablet soon. If the tablet takes off and does really well over the holidays it could put a major dent in Apple's tablet dominance. The main issue holding back tablet sales is the economy is still terrible. Consumers are looking for tablets priced less than manufacturers can afford to make them.

TECH