Apple’s iPad is likely to be taken over by other tablets in the market within three years, Nomura analysts have predicted. According to the report prepared by Nomura analysts, Apple will end up shipping about 35 million iPads this year, whereas others will be able to ship about 20 million tablets.
The lead of Apple is likely to become narrower in 2012 and 2013, and the iPad will lose its absolute majority in 2014 when non Apple tablets will sell 83 million compared to 78 million iPads.
In the short term, Apple will retain its 65 per cent market share and the only major challenger it would face would be Samsung which is likely to grab about 13 per cent of the tablet market due to its strong products like Galaxy Tab 10.1 whereas other major players would not be able to grow their market share higher than 4 per cent.
The year 2012 is likely to play along the same lines but with a slight difference would be Samsung and other smaller players eating in to the market share of iPad. Android will also gain from the arrival of Ice Cream Sandwich.
The balance would tilt against Apple largely due to Microsoft, says the Nomura report. The Windows 8 tablets would begin the year (2012) with 5 million tablets and would go up to 20 million tablets by the year 2014. Despite being the smaller player among the other tablet players, Microsoft would still be the game changer which will break the current established order among the tablet manufacturers.
Such reports, which make predictions over a long term, run the risk of not anticipating some wild card factors, something which they missed to take into account. There might be a product failure, or a sudden success, or even a new platform which may change the market scenario altogether.