Tablet takeaways
Goldman Sachs has come up with an interesting 68-page report on the burgeoning tablet market. Calling tablets "one of the most disruptive forces in computing," Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope and colleagues see tablets eating into the PC market, echoing YouGov's thoughts.
Taking a wide-lens view of the tablet market, the report estimates tablet cannibalization is not temporary. With the growing number of people replacing their PCs with tablets, the report notes that tablets will be 35 percent cannibalistic in 2011 and 33 percent cannibalistic in 2012.
"This should result in a theoretical loss of 21 million notebooks in 2011 and 26.5 million in 2012," the report says. But while some tablet units will be replacing computers, the other 65 to 67 percent will be purchased in addition to PCs and therefore will increase the overall technology market. Intel's recent record revenues imply the cannibalistic factor is still pretty slight.
Unsurprisingly, Shope predicts that Apple will hold onto 64 percent of tablets this year. The analysts estimate that 60.1 million tablets will be sold in 2011. That's up from 17.9 million in 2010, when the iPad was first introduced. In fact, Apple could perform better and hold as much as 74 percent if the predicted downside scenario works.
The report noted that Android tablets may disappoint this year. Bringing bad news to RIM, Goldman says consumer tablets might be as popular with enterprises too.
Goldman also thinks LTE could be a key driver to tablet sales over the next 3-4 years. . The report says "this gives non-iPad vendors such as MMI, Samsung, and to a lesser degree RIM an early lead given Apple is not likely to release an LTE-enabled iPad until 2012."
Goldman also suggests that the expansion of iPads, and tablets, might cause a trouble to the Microsoft-Intel monopoly. The report contains historical references and delves deep into the tablet market. Here's the whole thing for your light reading pleasure.
Meanwhile, a recent report from Strategy Analytics suggests that global tablet revenues are expected to surge to $49 billion by 2015. North America, Asia Pacific and Western Europe are identified as key markets.
Peter King, director at Strategy Analytics, said: "80 percent of the value of the tablet market in 2015 will reside in both high-tier and entry-tier models, as tablets address the opportunities in both developed and emerging markets such as the Asia Pacific region. On a global basis, tablet revenues will exceed those of every consumer electronics category except TVs and PCs by 2015."
