The future of the fondleslab belongs to the Fire
Well, devices the same size, price as the Amazon Kindle tab
Well over half the of the tablet market will be comprised of cheap tablets by 2016, it has been forecast.
Cheap is defined by market watcher ABI Research, which made the prediction, as costing less than $400 (£253). That's where the vast majority of new entrants into the arena will come, ABI reckons, many of them aimed at emerging markets.
And not just the likes of China and India. In the West, we'd note Amazon's surge to second place in most tablet market tallies, all thanks to the debut - in the US only, mark you - of the $199 (£126) 7in Kindle Fire.
The shift to lower-cost devices also means more 7in machines like the Fire. Right now, tablets with a screen that's 9in or above account for 75 per cent of the 220-odd devices ABI believes are currently in the market. Pretty much all of the larger models are iPad 2s.
It'll be the 7-9in segment that will dominate by 2016, accounting for 60 per cent of the tablet market. Perhaps Apple's rumoured 7.85in 'iPad Mini' will be one of them. Maybe it won't be cheap and that, of itself, will mess up ABI's tablet forecast.
Meanwhile, the researcher reckons shipments of e-book readers will increase 20 per cent this year, after experiencing 33 per cent growth during 2011. To what extent this growth will hold back the cheap tablet market, ABI didn't say. ®
COMMENTS
Analyst BS 101
Define random price point at which ipad is not sold but Fire is.
Give it a semi-catchy name. "Cheap Tablets"
Make random comments that pertain to same.
Results - either stating the bleeding obvious and/or utter analyst bullshit.
Release statement on slow news day.
Justify analysts existence for 10 more seconds.
Seriously - how much do these jerks get paid for coming out with this?
The Amazon What?
I'm sorry, I live in the UK. It seems that Amazon don't really want my money, or care enough about me to even bother hinting at when they might get around to remembering that there is a world outside the US of A.
As for the report, fully in agreement with 'Gordon 10', this is the usual mixture random statistics and the bleeding obvious.
Re: Screen Size
Long may we have horses for courses...
I, on the other hand, really appreciate the larger screen of an iPad as I find it *much* easier to read and type on.
Long may we have choice.
One wonders what the market's going to be like once Microsoft pulls their finger out. In a couple of years we should have some real choice and real innovation as there'll be three major players.
Re: when 7 inch is enough
I asked 'er indoors this morning, and she said 7" is not enough :(
Kindle Fire 'Platinum Edition', 16GB, cameras, GPS, Android, $200
It's called the BlackBerry PlayBook.
LOL.
