Global shipments kept growing during the whole period

Feb 1, 2013 16:38 GMT  ·  By

We know how many tablets will sell during 2013, or what the best estimate is, but the tally for 2012 is still pending. Analyst firms have begun to publish their findings though.

While not close to the 145 million projected by ABI Research for this year, the figure given by DigiTimes Research for 2012 is quite high.

Long story short, the market watcher believes 109 million branded tablets were shipped last year.

The iPad managed 21 million units in the fourth quarter, while non-iPad models (including those from Google, Amazon, B&N and Microsoft) got to 22.22 million.

For the whole year, iPad accounted for 58.7% and Android for 38.8%.

2013 will continue in the same vein, but the players might change: NVIDIA was late launching Tegra 4 (and is paying for it) while Texas Instruments fired mobile workers in October. Given these events, MediaTek and Qualcomm might fill the vacuum.