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Tablets expected to outpace laptop sales this year
North American sales of tablets are poised to surpass laptop sales for the first time, claims industry analyst NPD DisplaySearch. The firm points out that sinking tablet prices (e.g. Nexus 7 @ $199, Amazon Kindle Fire @ $159) and ever-increasing model diversity (e.g. Apple's addition of the iPad mini, various 7 to 10.6-inch Android tablets) will all be contributing factors to this upcoming milestone.
For now, this is expected to be just a one-time event fueled by Black Friday holiday consumerism. However, NPD DisplaySearch says we'll start seeing tablet sales outpace their notebook counterparts on an increasingly regular basis, possibly until tablets permanently dominate the luggable computer landscape. In North America, NPD DisplaySearch believes this passing of the torch to tablets could be as early as 2013 with estimated sales of tablets weighing in at 80 million units versus 63.8 million notebooks.
Incidentally, another analyst from Forrester Research seems to share NPD's long term vision: tablets will overrun sales of laptops. Forrester predicted earlier this year that over 760 million tablets would be in use by 2016, making tablets inevitably a more popular choice than notebooks amongst global consumers. The North American market is expected to be the first market to fall to a tablet majority.
Sales of tablets have been steadily rising since Apple debuted their first take on the handheld, screen-like device. Around this time last year, tablet sales outpaced netbooks (remember those?) for the first time ever.
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User Comments: 8
Got something to say? Post a comment-
Littleczr said:
To bat you can't really do homework on a tablet. If not I would buy one for myself. My htc evo 4g lte handles all my media needs at the moment. Although I am considering buying an ipad mini for my g/f. Personally I hate ios, but she is ecstatic about it.
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Tablets are just a fad /s
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That's what Microsoft said last year and look at it now with 'The Surface'.
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Tablets are just a fad /s
3D is a fad. Tablets are just a form of digital evolution. It doesn't matter whether you like them or not, they're here to stay.
Strangely enough, they're another device that was predicted by Star Trek.
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Tablets are just a fad /s
there not really a fad anymore, but most (probably 95%) of those that buy one very soon realize they didnt actually have need of one
my dad bought an ipad, I doubted his need of owning one, he espoused he needed it to power his linn magik (as a remote/playlist link to his nas) all was fine for about 2 months........its now gathering dust in a draw and he uses his laptop
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In other news... Laptop theft is down, Tablet theft is up!
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To all those that didn't know --> "/s" means sarcastim
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Sarcasm doesn't translate well online though :P
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