iPad fuels 45% global tablet market growth

The tablet market has been a one manshow with Apple's iPad dominating sales in the last year as theintroduction of the first serious competitor in the face of the7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab didn't do much to change that. Marketanalysts IDC noted a 45% quarter-on-quarterincrease inthe media tablet segment for the third quarter of 2010. In IDC'sterms, a tablet is any 5- to 14-inch device in the tablet form factorrunning a lightweight OS like Android OS or iOS, but not a “full”OS, which would make it a tablet PC.

There were 4.8 million media tabletsshipped during last year's third quarter with 4.2 million of thembeing Apple's slate. This means that the tablet had a share of87.4%. At the same time, IDC's fourth quarter expectations foriPad sales accounted to 6.5 million units, while just yesterday Applebeat that estimate with a 7.3 million sold tablets throughoutthe holiday quarter.

With that said, the estimation mightseem even less optimistic as the market reacts well to the newproduct. The upcoming Motorola XOOM and RIM PlayBook tablet upped theestimate for 2011 to 44.6 million shipped tablets.

Research Director at IDC SusanKevorkian concluded:

"The media tablet market's rapidevolution will continue to accelerate in fourth quarter 2010 andbeyond with new product and service introductions, channel expansion,price competition and experimentation with new use cases amongconsumers and enterprises."

source: IDCvia ArsTechnica