Report: iPad will grow 250% in 2011 at the expense of PCs
The report, cited by John Paczkowski of the Wall Street Journal Digital Daily blog, was prepared by Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra.
"We model Appleâs iPad continuing to dominate [â¦] in 2011,â Cihra wrote. "iPad not only launched with phenomenal early uptake but effectively sent all wannabes back to the drawing board, delaying most competitive tablet launches well into CY11.
"Yet we now already look forward to the first iPad 2 refresh in March (i.e., establishing annual cadence for iPads in March, iPhone each June and iPods in Sept). An enormous multi-year opportunity, we continue to view iPads less about the âproductâ but rather igniting an explosion toward âthin-clientâ Access computing.â
Android licensees, including Acer, Motorola and possibly HTC, are expected to demo new tablets at CES, but those devices won't be ready until Google finishes Android OS 3.0 Honeycomb, which isn't expected for release until March 2011. RIM is still struggling to put its PlayBook technologies together, while HP prepares its first webOS tablet, expected to be named PalmPad. Microsoft is also believed to be attempting a second shot at launching tablets running Windows 7 at CES.
A large number of new competing mobile platforms will make it easier for Apple's iPad to stand up as an established product, with thousands of apps and mature enterprise support, in a sea of incompatible tablet designs attempting to deliver a wide range of screen sizes and other feature packages.
Tablets to expand at the expense of conventional PCs
Cihra estimates global tablet sales at 54 million in 2011, with Apple taking 67 percent market share with its iPad. That growth, he said, would come at the expense of PCs.
"We see cannibalization from âthin-clientâ iPads/tablets, particularly vs. netbooks and in multi-PC homes, already growing to 1/7th the size of the overall PC market in 2011 and shaving 5 percentage points off what PC growth might otherwise have been,â Cihra wrote. PC growth, excluding tablets, is expected to drop from 14 percent this year to just 9 percent in 2011.
However, if tablets are defined as a new PC form factor they would turn the situation around, as Cihra presented graphically in the report (below).
Defining the iPad as a PC, which Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer did earlier this year, also more than doubles Apple's market share and establishes the company as the largest mobile PC maker in the US and the third largest worldwide, behind only HP and Acer, and just ahead of Dell.
While the iPad is devastating growth among low end notebooks and netbooks, they haven't had a discernible impact upon Apple's MacBook sales, which have been bolstered by the recent release of the MacBook Air. Apple doesn't sell any PCs on the extreme low end, isolating it from the cannibalization other PC makers are experiencing in the wake of the iPad's release. Instead, the iPad has bolstered Apple's earnings while appearing to only offer a halo effect that supports Mac sales and growth.
64 Comments
That's like saying the automobile "replaced" the horse-drawn carriage. It did, but it was a new market altogether. I don't think a tablet is going to "replace" a PC, unless, like Steve Ballmer, you think that physical keyboards are going to atrophy from notebooks. No, I think the iPad has taken off because it's NOT a keyboardless-PC. It's turning out to be a new category of computing device. If anything, I'm surprised it hasn't cannibalized the iPod Touch.
It would be amazing if Apple could hold a 75% share of Tablets like they do with MP3 players.
Apple is so far ahead in materials design, software/OS design and the integration of all their products. I mean just look at the missteps of RIM, Google, Sony, Nokia and MS over the last year.Me, have my iPhone 4 and a first gen intel iMac. Need a 2nd gen iPad, an ATV and an MBA and I'm done buying electronic gadgetry...that is unless Apple introduces something new in 2011!
What are the chances of that?
Hey Happy New Year to everyone!
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igniting an explosion toward ‘thin-client’ Access computing.
Can I puke now? An iPad is anything but a thin client. Paczkowski throws around terminology as carelessly as most analysts do. Maybe tech journalists should know something about engineering and tech before they are allowed to write about it.
Go back to comedic tech fluff John. It's safer.
Its dominate position, really? Sigh. At least we didn't get "it's dominate position", I suppose.
That's like saying the automobile "replaced" the horse-drawn carriage. It did, but it was a new market altogether. I don't think a tablet is going to "replace" a PC, unless, like Steve Ballmer, you think that physical keyboards are going to atrophy from notebooks. No, I think the iPad has taken off because it's NOT a keyboardless-PC. It's turning out to be a new category of computing device. If anything, I'm surprised it hasn't cannibalized the iPod Touch.
Good points...remember when they termed the iPod an "Halo" product? It seems that everything Apple makes now from desktops, laptops, iPads, iPhones are all "Halo" products....
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