Telecom Lead America: Media tablets are expected to
exceed 100 million units in 2012.
Media tablet shipments during the April to June quarter
of 2012 touched nearly 25 million units. During the quarter total shipments
grew 36 percent quarter-over-quarter and 77 percent year-over-year.
Apple iPad shipments represented nearly 69 percent of
worldwide volumes for the period, according to ABI Research.
Samsung’s tablets shipments grew 8.1 percent.
ASUS increased shipments by 4 percent.
RIM experienced the most significant decline at 1
percent.
Shipments of Dell and LG ceased in the period as both
companies retrench for future tablet offerings.
Most impressive about Apple’s 17.0 million tablet
shipments in 2Q 2012 was it nearly matched 2010 total worldwide shipments of
17.3 million for all vendors.
Jeff Orr, senior practice director for mobile devices,
ABI Research, said Apple noted that nearly 1 million of its iPad 2 devices were
shipped to US education customers during the period, which contributed to the
company’s growth but also its continuing average selling price (ASP) decline.
ABI Research estimates a 4 percent drop in ASP for the
company QoQ and nearly 19 percent YoY.
Samsung maintained its second-place share for 2Q 2012,
followed by Amazon and ASUS.
New vendors and products are entering the fray during the
second half of the year, including tablets from Google and Microsoft.
ABI Research expects the new products to impact share
both positively from Google Nexus 7 and negatively from Microsoft’s Surface
tablets of Google’s Android OS used on most tablet models.
Generally thought of as mobile computing devices, the
majority of tablet shipments only contain Wi-Fi support, which restricts device
use to homes, facilities, and public hotspots.
In 2Q 2012, less than 27 percent of new shipments
included a mobile broadband (3G/4G) modem module, down 12 percent YoY. A more
competitive marketplace and consumers looking to keep personal expenses down
have contributed to this trend.