Maybe 20 of the near 130 tablets on display at the Consumer Electronics Show will be around by next year.
So says analyst Robert Heiblim of Blue Salve, which estimates Apple will likely sell 40 to 45 million of the 50 million tablets expected to move this year.
Yes, some of the new tablets have dual core processors but Apple is likely to match that on the iPad 2. Yes, Motorola’s Xoom will have Android 3.0 (truly optimized for tablets) in April, but most of the 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets won’t hit the market until the fall.
And “the fact remains that the Android marketplace for apps is far below Apple in number and quality. This won’t change soon,” said Heiblim, a long time industry veteran who was president of Denon and has held senior VP posts at Altec Lansing and Gemini Industries.
Many of the tablet suppliers at CES have no business model and will simply fail. Others have developed “a good ‘in and out’ plan,” he explained. They are planning to sell small quantities of tablets for $199 to $299. “Only some companies are thinking clearly. Others still think they can get share.”
An exception may be some of the Windows 7 tablets aimed at businesses that are ruggedized or integrated with enterprise solutions like Sharepoint or Salesforce.com. “This is where we see the most opportunity for competitors to Apple,” said Heiblim.
The conclusion is “Yes Apple will maintain iPod like share [over 70 percent] through this year and likely next. Going forward they will probably dominate consumer tablets for years.”
Heiblim says Windows 8, webOS and QNX tablets on the horizon will launch as unproven “experiments.”
So for most tablet makers, the market “Looks like a bubble which will burst. I predict a lake of unsold tablets but they will make good closeouts. Much pain ahead is the prediction.”
Source: Blue Salve
