When ABI Research first examined the media tablet market, neither Apple’s iPad nor any other multinational-branded tablet had been released. Six months later, the firm has revisited its forecasts, almost tripling the original estimate to reach about 11 million tablets expected to ship by the end of 2010. Its long-term estimates, however, remain basically unchanged.
“Our forecast of 11 million media tablet shipments in 2010 is based both on the broader availability of the iPad and on the delayed introduction of competing products,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jeff Orr. “We believe that the iPad will account for a significant portion – but not all – of the projected 11 million units.”
That’s a safe bet. Apple sold over three million iPads in just 80 days.
According to Forrester Research, retailers will sell 6.6 million e-readers this year. Amazon said this week that sales of its Kindle hardware has tripled since the price was reduced from $259 to $189.
In other tablet news:
- Toshiba is readying both Android and Windows 7 Tablets for an October launch, says Gizmodo.
- Dell’s Streak, with a 5-inch display, is expected to have a 1GHz Snapdragon, a 5 megapixel camera, 850 / 1900MHz 3G for use on AT&T, and 2GB of internal storage coupled with a bundled 16GB microSDHC card. The Streak is launching with Android 1.6, although Froyo and Flash 10.1 are promised in an update.
- Acer is said to be launching 7-, 10-inch Android tablets before the end of the year
- Lenovo will have an Android Tablet by end of the year. Both will reportedly be ARM-based and run Android 2.2.
- The ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC will have Android, instead of Windows Embedded Compact 7, says Android Community. The touchscreen slate was announced at Computex earlier this year, with a 10-inch display. ASUS is said to be waiting for Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) to arrive before announcing their next crop of devices at CES 2011 in January.
- Sharp wants merge text and graphics under a single ebook standard called eXtending Mobile Document (XMDF). It enables video and animations and flashy presentation to be mingled in with the text. While XHTML can manage that, it lacks the precision text layout publishers crave, says Engadget.
Tablet sales are forecast to reach at least 15 million units this year, jumping to 28 million in 2011, according to Barclays Capital. A report earlier this year by Avian Securities forecast Netbooks rising from 37 million in 2009 to 47 million in 2010.
NY Magazine asks, is it The End for the book business as we know it?
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