Tablet market to be worth $2 billion come 2012 according to Deloitte
By Wilson • May 31st, 2010 • Category: Industry News
- Photo: Apple
Though they have some value to investors and their constituents, in technology circles we like nothing more than poking fun at analysts. Why? Well, because they’re allowed to make predictions and if their predictions are wrong – which they often are – they get to make new predictions without admitting they blew it the first time round. It’s a great job to have. Now, Deloitte have come out to say the iPad will spearhead a $2 billion tablet industry come 2012, bucking the trend by predicting very safely.
What does that mean?
At its core, the accounting firm is predicting that the success of the Apple tablet will lead a surge in the market, resulting in numerous competitors entering and a lot of revenue being grossed across the board. Paul Lee, Deloitte’s director of technology research, told the Telegraph that ‘tablets offer a more appealing balance of form and function’ than their netbook counterparts, one presumes.
Lee’s other thoughts
He also predicted that the most successful tablet maker would be the one with the best application store, meaning, like many believe, the Apple tablet is best poised to win in this market (initially).
Why we’re laughing
- Photo: Apple
Well, unless Lee was speaking about the UK only (which, if he was, he didn’t make it very clear), the tablet market is well on its way to surpassing that $2 billion market. With over 1 million iPads already sold, even if we were to assume they were all the cheap $499 16GB iPad without the Wi-fi, that would still already amount to a $499 million industry, a full quarter of Lee’s overall sales prediction in a less than a month
And in other news
The iPad finally went on sale in the UK on Friday 28 May, with some retailers letting product slip a day early. Cues at the flagship Apple store in London were long, and initial sales look promising. Whether the Apple tablet will become mass market or fringe in the UK, as some other ananylst has predicted is, as yet, still hard to tell.
Tags for this article: Apple iPad, ipad, tablet pc
