In-Stat predicts tablet shipments will reach 250M in 2017, thanks to increasing competition from major companies (including Samsung, Motorola, RIM, LG and HTC) entering the market.
The analyst says tablets are competing not only against PCs-- but against all CE and computing devices.
The tablet market and its ecosystem will continue evolving, with the next few generations showing increasing differentiation towards different market segments and useage models.
Meanwhile degrading prices will make tablets increasingly attractive to the mainstream and enterprise markets, together with with increasing mobile apps and new semiconductor technologies.
The dominant tablet form factor will remain 9-11", with 56% share of the 2017 market.
Maintaining over 90% of the 2017 market are iOS and Android, with Windows following far behind-- the analyst says a number of companies will fail in the tablet market due to not supporting one of the leading OS platforms.
