If we needed any more evidence of the iPad’s dominant position in the tablet market, a recent estimate of tablets sales for the next four years by Gartner certainly provides it. As GigaOM’s Mobilize reports the future looks very bright for the iPad:
Media tablet sales are set to grow from 17.6 million last year to 326.3 million in 2015, and the bulk of them will continue to be Apple iPads.
That’s enormous projected growth, and it Gartner are correct that the iPad will maintain the majority of sales, that’s going to be some massive sales numbers for the Apple tablet line.
The iPad is definitely off to an incredible start in its first 18 months or so on the market, and perhaps even more importantly there’s still a dearth of any real competition for it. Perhaps that will change when Amazon releases their tablet soon, or when Microsoft finally wheel out their Windows 8 tablets late next year – but there’s an awful lot of catching up to do. I think Gartner’s assessment of the tablet arena over the next few years sounds about right:
Even over the next four years, as competing tablets and their supporting ecosystems mature, Gartner projects Apple’s iPad will hold a majority share of all tablets sales over the next four years. Android will continue to chase for the No. 2 spot but still manage just over a third of market share by 2015, while QNX and Microsoft slates bring up the rear. HP is considered to be out of the game completely due to abandoning the TouchPad hardware business with a massive inventory fire-sale.