14 DAY TRIAL // Anyone worrying that tablets may be losing their groove can sit back and relax because at least one analyst thinks shipment levels will rise massively in 2012.
The way things are going, some might start to think that maybe tablets aren't going to keep growing in sales much.
After all, the fourth quarter is set to show zero growth, more or less, in terms of shipments.
According to Digitimes, though, the slowdown in sales for Q4, 2011 is not so much a symptom of impending market saturation as it is a consequence of other things.
The disaster that hit Japan back on March 11 was one, greatly disruptive event that did not spare any layer of the worldwide economy, not to mention the thousands dead.
Things aren't made any better by the persistent global economic downturn, which is the second big reason given for how slates aren't going to show any record sales rise.
In 2012, these two factors will have less and less effect, the former more than the latter.
As such, consumers should start showing more interest in slates again, particularly with platforms like NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Kal-El running rampant.
Intel was also just reported to have decided on making a special CPU just for slates, leaving smartphones to Medfield.
All in all, it is predicted that tablet shipments will rise by about 60% in total next year, not at all a shy figure by any measure.
91.5 million units is the number currently envisioned by Digitimes Research senior analyst James Wang.
The number is estimated to keep growing over the next few years as well, until it strikes 170 million units in 2014.
That would be 70% of estimated total notebook shipments, which more or less butts heads with the forecast made for ultrabooks, which said that super-thin laptops will account for 43% of all notebooks in 2014-2015 (though it may have been because slates weren't taken into account).