New research from Ovum has revealed that global shipments of portable internet devices based on ‘lite' operating systems (OSs), which include tablet computers such as the iPad, will hit 150 million per year in 2015.
The new forecast, ‘Tablets and Other Mobile Internet Devices Forecast: 2010 - 15',www.datamonitor.com shows that shipments will likely increase from 14.2 million at the end of 2010, a CAGR of 60%.
Explaining the fundamentals of the growth of devices which are ideal as viewers for mobile video applications, Tony Cripps, Ovum principal analyst, said, "This huge growth in shipments will be dominated by tablet-style technologies such as the iPad and will mainly be driven by consumers buying devices to complement their smartphones. This will either be as a ‘third device' where there is a high-penetration PCs or the primary computing device where there is low-penetration.
According to Ovum's predictions, North America and Western Europe will experience the greatest penetration of tablet and other mobile internet devices by 2015, with 23% and 19% of global shipments, respectively. Furthermore, Ovum does not expect products such as tablets to eat into the still increasing demand for smartphones.
In keeping with recent trends, Ovum predicts that by 2015, Google's operating systems, primarily Android but also likely to include Chrome OS, will be the dominant platform pushing Apple's iOS into second place.
"We believe that Apple constituted 90% of the market in 2010. However, by 2015 we expect this market share to drop to 35% and Google's market share to rise to 36%. Other software platforms, such as RIM's Blackberry Tablet OS and HP's web OS, will find some success but between them all they will only account for 29%," Tony added.
Ovum expected Apple and Google to still attract the most attention from the top apps developers and that this would ensure their market leadership.