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HP, Samsung, and Acer fight for second place, although HP is dropping out of the race, shortly

It's no secret that the modern minimalist tablet market has been the hottest new thing in the electronics industry for the past couple of years.  After Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL) original iPad showed the world what a well-packaged modern tablet could do, the public began to finally warm to the decades old device, which had been prettied up with the latest state-of-the-art multi-touch UI and app store technologies.  
 
Now with Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android alliance heating up it's a great time for the market, and a bad time for the old-fashioned PC who is seeing usage cannibalization coupled with slowing sales.

FutureSource Consulting, a market research group, reports that 15.5 million tablets sold in Q3 2011, up almost four-fold from Q3 2010's 4.5 million mark.  U.S. consumers were the biggest purchasers of tablets for Q3 2011, by far, accounting for 7.1 million units (appr.) and 46 percent of global sales.  But the European market is growing faster, with 4.2 million units sold (~27% of the market).  The remaining quarter of the market belonged to the Asian markets and various developing regions.  Tablets have yet to catch on in a big way in China -- currently the world's largest smartphone market.

In the U.S. Apple reigned supreme with 70 percent of shipments.  The rest of the market was largely divided between Android designs -- mostly from Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd.() (makers of the Galaxy series of tablets/smartphones) and Acer, Inc. (TPE:2353) makers of the Iconia -- and  the webOS's final clearance hurrah, courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ).  Earlier reports indicated that HP might have been second in sales, for the quarter, with Samsung in third place.

Where things should get interesting is in Q4 2011, which includes the holiday season.  WebOS will of course vanish, as it's all clearanced out.  That -- combined with recent lifting of Apple-imposed import bans in Germany and Australia -- should bump Samsung up to second place, potentially adding to its strong smartphone sales performance.  But Amazon, Inc. (AMZN) could possibly have stolen second place from Samsung or at least have been a close third, thanks to its hot budget-friendly Android Kindle Fire.

Source: FutureSource [via WidePR]


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RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By Reclaimer77 on 1/5/2012 8:02:48 PM , Rating: 2
How can you proclaim "Samsung won't get 2nd place" when the Samsung Windows 8 tablets haven't even hit yet?

You got a crystal ball over there or something?


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By B3an on 1/6/2012 1:41:41 AM , Rating: 2
Once Win 8 is out its's game over for Android tablets, and somewhat the same for iOS. Atleast until Apple copies MS and merges iOS with OSX in to one single OS (typically you can bet Apple pretend they're the first to do this when it happens). Samsung will likely sell very well once Win 8 is out, along with many other companies.

I mean whats the point of having Android when you could get a tablet with a real OS that does everything a PC does, has support for literally tens of thousands of peripherals and could be connected to monitors and mice/keyboards at a desk for when you're sitting down, basically making it a full blown PC so you could actually do some real work on them (because i'm sure many Win 8 tablets will have USB and HDMI output), or alternatively you could have have a keyboard dock like with the Transformer Prime.


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By messele on 1/6/2012 2:45:04 AM , Rating: 2
Well done for identifying in two paragraphs why Windows tablets failed the first time around.

You could call this new tablet the "Windows Dog's Dinner" - it'd sell literally...some.


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By TakinYourPoints on 1/8/2012 6:29:32 AM , Rating: 2
Exactly. None of these people understand that a device that is designed around interface limitations (aka no mouse/keyboard and a small display) is what is needed and desired, not a crippled version of a desktop OS running on limited hardware.


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By messele on 1/9/2012 2:26:07 AM , Rating: 2
The should go run MS with their revolutionary ideas. Balmer would be grateful as that's the only way he'd be able to look back and go "See, I'm not the most clueless jackass in the entire computer industry".


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By Reclaimer77 on 1/6/2012 9:26:41 AM , Rating: 2
I think you're mistaken about the Windows 8 tablet. It won't be X86 based, therefore won't be compatible with our PC apps. It won't have a true PC experience unfortunately.


RE: Samsung won't get 2nd place
By acer905 on 1/6/2012 12:27:40 PM , Rating: 3
The x86/ARM split will depend entirely on the hardware makers. It is entirely likely that those who already make Win7 x86 tablets will simply upgrade them to Win8, while new makers jump to ARM. However, the optimum solution to the whole mess is the destruction of the notebook computer, with a replacement by the Transformer style (or the new Thinkpad hybrid) tablet with keyboard dock. Imagine if HP or Dell made a fully x86 Win8 tablet with a "productivity" dock attached. All the standard laptop ports, keyboard, trackpad, maybe even extra storage and battery.

Desktops are pretty much dead for consumers for anything but media storage and gaming.

Traditional laptops can easily be replaced by convertible tablets.

Win8 is once again pushing software past the hardware, hoping to change the hardware trend with it.


"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." -- Michael Dell, after being asked what to do with Apple Computer in 1997











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