Market analysts are forecasting significant growth in expected shipments of tablets during this year. According to the analysis, this year between 170 and 180 million tablets will be sold worldwide, while supplies last year amounted to about 130 million.
Although the majority of shares in this category of devices are products with diagonal screens between 9 and 11 inches and that market still belongs to Apple's iPad. A significant increase is expected also with more and more popular smaller tablets with 7 inch screens. In the latter segment, tablets with Android will still prevail, although estimates are saying that the iPad Mini will record substantial growth in both popularity and number of deliveries.IHS iSupply data show that deliveries of 9 inch tablets in the last year rose 35 percent to 73.4 million devices (59 percent of total market share), while the deliveries of 7 inch models have almost doubled from a year ago to 41.1 million devices and now they make 32 percent share of the global market. IDC forecasts that smaller tablets will be even more successful this year, with over 60 percent of the total deliveries to be made by tablets with diagonal screens between 7 and 8 inches.
[Ed - With the popularity of the Nexus 7 and Kindle tablets it is not surprising to see these devices take off and begin to eat up market share. We do expect to see this form factor really grow even more in the coming year. ]
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