IDC Raises Media Tablet Sales Prediction

We can never know what the future holds, but we can make a very good guess as long as we have enough facts to base our assumptions on. IDC has just provided those facts.

The International Data Corporation used to believe that tablets wouldn't go much past 106.1 million shipments this year, but it had to change its mind.

In its newest press release, IDC revealed that the demand in the second half of the year was bound to skyrocket further than previously suspected.

"Demand for media tablets remains robust, and we see an increasing interest in the category from the commercial side," said Tom Mainelli, research director, mobile connected devices at IDC.

"We expect pending new products from major players, increasingly affordable mainstream devices, and a huge marketing blitz from Microsoft around Windows 8 to drive increased consumer interest in the category through the end of the year."

IDC has revised its forecast to 107.4 million for 2012, 142.8 million in 2013 (used to be 137.4 million) and 222.1 million units by 2016.

Apple's iOS will hold around 62.5 percent of the market (up from 58.2% in 2011), followed by Android with 36.5 percent (was 38.7 percent in 2011) and blackberry with 1% (drop from 1.7%).

As can be seen, IDC did not include Windows 8 or Windows RT tablets in its tracker, but such products will become subject to its Media Tablet Tracker from Q3 onwards.

"We're looking forward to rolling the Windows-based tablets into our tablet forecast in order to give customers a complete view of tablet slates all in one place," Mainelli commented.

"Our current thinking, based upon early pricing expectations for these products, is that Windows-based tablets will be largely additive to our existing media tablet market forecast. We don't expect Windows-based tablets to necessarily take share from Apple and Android, but will grow the overall tablet market."