Interesting read on tablets at CES
Eric Savitz
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Eric Savitz
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At CES, Expect Tablet Mania
Dec. 29 2010 - 12:10 pm | 4,322 views | 0 recommendations | 5 comments
By ERIC SAVITZ
Next week, the world’s gadgeteers head off to Las Vegas for the annual geekfest known as the Consumer Electronics Show. The event always encompasses a vast array of products and technologies, but every year certain themes stand out. And this time around, one of those will be tablet PCs.
With the popularity of the Apple (AAPL) iPad, there has been a rush by hardware manufacturers and chip makers alike to rush into the category, which had been pretty sleepy until Apple entered the market. And products from the hardware and chip companies alike will be on display at next week’s show.
Caris & Co. analyst Craig Ellis this morning wrote in a research note that he now counts at least 69 entries into the tablet category, up from 38 when he last counted in November. He sees 2011 shipments of 53.6 million tablets, including 36.1 million iPads. Ellis notes that Samsung is targeting sales of 9 million Galaxy Tabs, and adds that checks in Asia find industry expectations for the category in the 40 million to 60 million range. He also points out that adjacent e-reader category could double next year to more than 20 million units, from around 10 million this year.
Ellis also notes that Intel (INTC) has been gaining ground in processor design wins, as has Freescale, while asserting that Nvidia (NVDA) and Texas Instruments (TXN) have lost some ground. He notes that processors based on chip designs from ARM Holdings (ARMH) account for about three-quarters of the tablets; among chip makers offering ARM-based designs are Nvidia, Freescale, Texas Instruments and Qualcomm (QCOM).
A host of companies are jumping into the tablet market; the real question is whether anyone – Samsung, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Research In Motion, whoever – can make a dent in a market that Apple so far has completely dominated. There’s no question that many of these companies can and will produce attractive, capable products. But there’s not much proof yet that users are pining for alternatives to the iPad; we’ll see if the perception shifts at all by the end of next week when CES winds down. |
