Rupert Murdoch announced last week that Apple’s iPad was a “game changer” and would lead to hundreds of millions of so-called tablet computers being sold globally it was not just the media world that nodded sagely in agreement. The technology industry is also gearing up for a world in which the desktop PC, laptop computer and smartphone are joined by a fourth member of the home computing family.
With the same market foresight and cutting edge design that enabled it to revolutionise the smartphone market with the iPhone, Apple has given itself a commanding lead in this new market. But the iPad is about to have several new competitors, some of which will be made by companies that have scores to settle with Apple boss Steve Jobs, having seen him usurp their place in the mobile phone market.
It is the very success that Apple had in the smartphone market and the reaction it has produced — especially from Google — that means Mr. Jobs will not enjoy the sort of lengthy market lead with the iPad that he has enjoyed with the iPhone.
It is three years since the iPhone first appeared and only in recent months have serious competitors arrived. But with one of the first real alternatives to the iPad expected to be unveiled on Wednesday in New York by Samsung, there will soon be devices able to compete with and perhaps even better Apple’s product.
Murdoch himself reckons Apple will sell about 15m iPads this year and more than 40m by 2012, with more being made by other manufacturers. But estimates for the potential size of the market vary wildly. One thing is certain, these estimates will be wrong.
A couple of months before the iPad launched, ABI Research estimated that 4m could be shipped this year, rising to 57m a year by 2015. But on the run-rate reached since the device launched in the U.S. in April, Apple should exceed 4m this month. At the start of the year, research house Gartner reckoned 4m tablets would be sold this year — including the iPad. After the iPad’s success, that estimate is now 14m.
To put this into perspective, the tablet market is still small compared with the PC and the mobile phone markets. Sticking with Gartner’s figures, the 14m tablets in 2010 compares with an estimate of 1.4bn mobile phones and 366m personal computers.
In financial terms, Generator Research reckons by 2014 Apple’s iPad business will be worth more than $17bn, while the worldwide smartphone market will be worth $65bn and the laptop market $195bn.
But while the figures for tablet computers may be comparatively small, the technology industry reckons tablets will fundamentally shape the way consumers interact with digital content in the future. Getting in on the ground floor, so to speak, is crucial.
As with so many technology fads, the industry has been here before. A decade ago, Bill Gates unveiled the Tablet PC and the following year told the Microsoft faithful that the new device would become the most popular form of PC within five years. Five years later, Microsoft was still trying. It teamed up with Intel and Samsung for Project Origami to work on smaller handheld digital media and gaming devices. They also failed to capture the public’s imagination.
Apple, however, has got its timing right. Whether by luck or judgment, the iPad has emerged during a confluence of events. The ubiquity of broadband internet access in the developed world has created a generation of web users who want instant access and interactivity with media, from music and film to books and newspapers. The media industry, meanwhile, is desperate to move away from the mere “digitisation” of its traditional product so it fits on a PC screen and is ready to experiment with new formats.
The iPhone and its host of imitators, meanwhile, have got consumers accustomed to the idea of using touch as their main point of interaction with content, rather than a keyboard and a mouse. Finally, the arrival of operating systems designed specifically for touch-based smartphones means manufacturers have something ready to use, rather than having to shoehorn into their tablet computers pared-down but still bulky “mobile” versions of PC operating systems.
After the arrival of Apple’s iOS, when the first iPhone appeared, Google realised the mobile phone industry could not be relied on to create a viable competing software platform on its own. So it created its own operating system, Android.
This year, sales of Android devices have already overtaken sales of iPhones in the U.S. and sales in the U.K. are already up more than 300% as the result of just one new device, the HTC Desire. Worldwide, Android is expected to overtake iOS in terms of global smartphone shipments during 2012, according to forecasts from iSuppli. The company reckons Android will be used in 75m smartphones at this point, up from 5m last year, while iOS usage will be 62m units, up from 25m. Now Android is headed for the tablet market.
BlackBerry, meanwhile, has upgraded its software for touch and looks ready to explore tablets, while Hewlett-Packard recently bought Palm, which will provide it with a solid software base for the next generation of smartphones and tablets.
“How long did it take for competitors to compete with the iPhone?” asks Carolina Milanesi, from Gartner’s mobile devices team. “You are talking three years. But with the tablet I really do not think that is going to be the case. A lot of the things that took time in the smartphone market are already there in tablets. We continue to see Apple dominating the segment for the next three years or so but you will see devices that are very close to the iPad very quickly.”
Copyright: Guardian News & Media 2010
