For a product which has just celebrated its first anniversary, growth ratio and market share may not be that much important aspect to discuss about. However, when it comes to Tablet, almost everyone has been stunned from the Neilson’s latest research which reveals only 5% market penetration of Tablets despite of such enormous success, hype and demand.
Of all the mobile devices that have hit the market in last one year, Tablet has been at most demanding position primarily driven by Apple’s iPad. Though, other companies like HTC, Acer, HP, Samsung and LG are gearing up to launch their own set of Tablets – either running on Android or in-house platform –  market is expected to witness significant growth by end of this year.
As per the Nielsen’ survey on 12,000 U.S. consumers, 4.8 percent reported they owned a tablet in the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, among other mobile devices, smartphones led the way with 36-percent penetration, followed by media players (13 percent), e-readers (nine percent) and netbooks (eight percent).
While the figures put Tablet at the last position, the growth is phenomenon – if we compare to other similar products penetration – especially because of Apple iPad which first got launched in April 2010. While the first e-reader, the Kindle debuted way back in late 2007, just 3 percent of people have claimed to own the device by first quarter of last year, according to Neilson. Netbooks, which have also been around for several years, were at 5.8 percent in the first quarter last year.
A comparative analysis between Tablets and other competitive products justifies the 4.8% tablet penetration and claims it indeed a good show. Interestingly, these figures are results despite of limited delivery of iPad and limited existence of Tablets from other companies.
In March this year Apple has launched the up-scaled version of Tablet – iPad 2 and Google has also given a shift to market by announcing Tablet specific platform Gingerbread. This has transformed the Tablet war to a new direction and companies have announced dual core processor for all upcoming Tablets. This has narrowed the gap between Tablet and entry-level PC’s and Laptops. Consequently, good numbers of people are expected to dump the idea of owning PCs and are turning for Tablets this year.
Also, with the growing range in Tablet devices, price war of expected to trigger somewhere in second half of this year which will only attract more people towards Tablets who are cost-conscious.
With ongoing innovation in Tablet market, next one year is going to be flourishing for companies. There are still lots of rooms to grow and with close to 5% growth in just one year, Tablet is proving to be a promising bet for now.
