22% Of All US Students Have Tablets

Figures reported by analysts may not always be the most accurate, but surveys still serve to give us an impression of how popular a certain device is, and it looks like tablets really are spreading.

Certain tablets may not be as successful as others, but, overall, this device type is not lacking in prospective customers.

To elaborate, while the Motorola XOOM is plagued by that problem known around the world as low sales, the Apple iPad is selling by the bunch, as always.

Meanwhile, other models, most of them based on the ARM hardware platform and loaded with the Android OS, are being promoted alongside these two (or as their opposition really).

Since such products have been on sale since last year, the folks over at Piper Jaffray conducted a survey to see just how widespread they are.

Apparently, the answer is somewhere between fairly and very widespread, if one is to trust in the numbers provided that is.

More specifically, it is said that one out of five US teenagers owns a tablet PC (4,500 high school students were covered).

Considering that 73% of all tablets shipped during the fourth quarter of 2010 were Apple iPads, it stands to reason that most of the teens above had one.

What's more, even though the 22% is already an impressive figure, the same survey found that 20% more want to buy a tablet sometime during the next six months.

Of course, it will depend on parents, for the most part, whether or not this really keeps up and teens keep fueling the slate craze.

In the meantime, IT players will keep looking out for new hardware platforms, like the NVIDIA Kal-El, while promoting existing and future designs, hopefully priced lower than what the industry has to show at the moment (up to $800 or more, in some cases).