Tablet Sales Will Blow Past PC Sales To Nearly 500 Million Units A Year By 2015 (Post PC era)

Business Insider ^ | 02/14/2012 | Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

[SeekAndFind]

Tablet sales will hit nearly 500 million units a year by 2015, according to a new report by BI Intelligence.

Tablet sales in 2015 will exceed the number of PCs currently sold per year (~360 million) and make tablets a $100+ billion market.

The forecast, which includes e-readers, predicts that tablet sales will grow at better than a 50% compound annual growth rate over the next few years.

The growth will be driven by falling prices combined with tablet penetration in the enterprise and education markets, as well as emerging markets.

Here are some highlights from the report, whose lead author is BI Intelligence analyst Alex Cocotas:

* We really are in a post-PC era. Smartphone unit sales passed PC sales last year. Tablet sales will follow in a few years. As Steve Jobs said, PCs will become like "trucks" and tablets like "cars": PCs will still be around, and they'll still be a big market, but they won't become the most common way people do their computing anymore.

* Tablets are a disruptive technology relative to PCs: Not as good at some things (spreadsheets and the like), but much better at other things (browsing the web, apps), cheaper, and improving all of the time.

Here's what will be the biggest drivers of the growth in tablets:

* Lower prices. The Kindle Fire has been a smashing success, showing the pent-up demand for a good, sub-$500 tablet. We think Google will use its Motorola acquisition to come out with a cheap, subsidized tablet a la Amazon. And we think Apple will lower prices, most likely by selling older models at a lower price point like it did with the iPhone. And we think e-readers (in light blue in the chart below) will remain a big market

[skinkinthegrass]

jmo; don’t get a micro velocity cruz t410... not very good. :-\

[utherdoul]

you can have my mouse and keyboard when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

[joe fonebone]

Got a motorola xoom, with android 3.2, 32 gig upgradable to 64, for under 500 bucks (love it)...no need for the cheap kindle or the inferior ipad...

[Psycho_Bunny]

“We really are in a post-PC era”

Lol. Ok. If you say so. Lolol

[justlurking]

Lol. Ok. If you say so.

I have a couple of laptop PC's (one for myself and one for work). I also have a tablet.

If all I did was read/answer email, post to FaceBook, Tweet, and watch YouTube videos, I could do it all with the tablet. I'd have no use for a PC.

And, that's what most people do with their PC these days. They have no need for a full-featured laptop. They don't care if the tablet has a lame keyboard -- and if they did, they could get a Bluetooth keyboard.

I can't use a tablet for everything, because some of the applications that I use daily won't run on anything but a PC. But, I'm in a shrinking minority.

What's really holding back tablet adoption is the price. For the price of an iPad, you can buy a decent "NetBook" with Windows 7 and more disk space than you'll ever need. The Kindle Fire gets closer, but its functionality and performance is currently handicapped.

[P8riot]

Love my 64GB BlackBerry PlayBook. If folks realized how advanced it is they would think twice before buying an iPad or Android tablet.

[VeniVidiVici]

Google bought Motorola? I gotta get out more.

I bought an HTC View to use as GPS that can do terrain and satellite maps. Nice size and works very well with my Sprint service. I had a netbook but lost it and can’t find any with a decent price anymore.

[UB355]

MY wife and I bought A Kindle Fire over the weekend.We had a first generation Kindle that need a battery replacement.

I had played with an ipad but for me it was too big to use as reader.

The Kindle Fire along with subscription to Amazon Prime which allows unlimited movie and TV streaming for a year worked out for us. Amazon Prime is $79.00 a year. First 30 days with a purchase is free. The movies can also be viewed on a PC I believe which will hook up to our HDTV.

[jeffc]

My PC is primarily a gaming rig, games you need a high powered video card to play. I can’t see doing that on a laptop, much less a tablet.

[Sans-Culotte]

I hate typing on the iPad, even if I’m just posting on a message board. It’s good for browsing while I’m sitting on the deck enjoying a cigar; but I prefer my PC.

[Signalman]

The Return of the King: Why PC Gaming is Making a Comeback:

http://www.gamephys.com/game-physics/the-return-of-the-king-why-pc-gaming-is-making-a-comeback/

[Inyo-Mono]

I have a quad core PC with a 23” monitor and a mixer plugged in with pro mics that I use for HD video editing. You won’t see me moving to a tablet anytime soon.

[rickomatic]

I replaced my dead laptop with an Asus Transformer Prime tablet around Christmas time. I still have a desktop, and an external hard drive for storing pictures, music and video,or working on documents for work. But the Prime tablet with 32gb internal storage, a MicroSD card slot for another 32gb, and a regular SD card slot and USB port on the keyboard dock is more than capable of replacing my laptop. Plus along with the dock, when fully charged I can get an easy 12-14 hours of battery life.
Some people have reported “buggy” units, but mine has worked flawlessly from day 1. And since the Android ICS (4.0)OS upgrade it’s even better.

[justlurking]

I hate typing on the iPad, even if I’m just posting on a message board.

I don't know how much you want to type on an iPad, but have you checked into the Bluetooth keyboards? I've seen one that was built into a case for the iPad.

I hate typing on one, too. But, I rarely use it for that, and don't have a separate keyboard.

[Sans-Culotte]

I don't know how much you want to type on an iPad, but have you checked into the Bluetooth keyboards? I've seen one that was built into a case for the iPad.

I might do that sometime. I usually just walk to the PC if I want to write a response on a place like FR. Just copying, pasting and adding the HTML tags on a post is a PITA on an iPad; which is why it will never replace a PC for me.

[meyer]

Got a motorola xoom, with android 3.2, 32 gig upgradable to 64, for under 500 bucks (love it)...no need for the cheap kindle or the inferior ipad...

Got a new Acer dual-core netbook with 4 gig of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, Windows 7 64 bit, and a built-in keyboard for under $400. I actually considered one of those convertable tablets but I wanted to maintain compatibility with my other windows machines. The price/performance wasn't quite there yet for a Windows-based machine. NOt that the Android system is bad. I'm just very familiar with Windows and what's available for it.

[ADemocratNoMore]

bttt

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

little help fron the tech knowitall's:

1) do these tablets run the risks of viruses?

2) do any of these handle the MS Office programs (Word, PowerPoint, Excel). I know the iPad does not. Sorry iPad users but the business STANDARD is excel/Word/PowerPoint. Not the apple generic versions.

[joe fonebone]

I am running an acer laptop with 17” screen too.... great little notebook..