Tablet sales are expected to spike by a staggering 226 percent in 2011.
Concurrently, global PC market unit growth will likely slow approximately 9 percent in 2011 – from 14 percent in 2010.
“We see cannibalization from ‘thin-client’ iPads/tablets, particularly vs. netbooks and in multi-PC homes,” Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra wrote in an industry note obtained by AllThingsD.
“[Tablets are] 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.”
Unsurprisingly, Cihra also projected that Apple’s iPad will claim 67 percent of all tablet sales, increasing iPad shipments from 14 million to 36 million.
“We model Apple’s iPad continuing to dominate in 2011. 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 ‘product’ but rather igniting an explosion toward ‘thin-client’ Access computing.”
