80 Million Tablet Sales Expected By 2015

The fortune tellers at Juniper Research have looked into their crystal ball and project that the number of annual shipments of tablet devices will reach 81 million by 2015.

The assumption is based on the fact that more consumer electronics and handset manufacturers will enter the market.

It claimed that Android is allowing both new and existing device manufacturers to enter the market and products have been launched already by companies such as Dell with the Streak, Maylong’s M150 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab.

Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper Research said that competition for Apple is likely to arrive in earnest in 2011.

Earnest may be a small town in Hicksville USA.  Cox thinks that by then Jobs’ and Co. will have launched another version of the iPad and will still be upping the bar.

Apple, as first to market with its compelling hardware and content combination, will maintain its market lead for the medium term, Cox said.

Products using QNX for Blackberry smartphones, Windows Phone 7 and MeeGo will come to market in 2011 and of course the netbook market will be pressured. However Juniper thinks that netbooks will remain resilient in the business market.  Read more….

Lenovo To Launch LePad Tablet In June

In what appears to be the year of the tablet, Chinese PC maker Lenovo announced plans to sell its LePad tablet worldwide in June, but will first launch the device in China at the end of March, a company spokesman said on today.

The LePad, Lenovo’s first tablet computer, was unveiled in January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is built with 10.1-inch screen that runs the Android 2.2 OS on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. (See a video report on LePad’s CES unveiling on YouTube.)

Lenovo said the device would be priced between $399 and $449. But at the time, the company was still unsure whether it would sell the product outside of China.

While Lenovo now plans on selling the tablet overseas, company spokesman Jay Chen couldn’t say which markets will be targeted.  Read More…