Led by the success of Apple’s iPad, tablet PCs are on a rapid upward trend that will see almost 20 million of them sold this year, according to IT analyst Gartner.<\/p>\n
However, the rapid growth of the tablet PC market will put significant pressure on other small-factor devices such as e-readers, netbooks, gaming devices and even smartphones, Gartner predicts.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Gartner expects open source operating systems for tablet PCs to fare better than most in this sector.<\/p>\n
Gartner is predicting that this year’s tablet PC sales will hit 19.4 million, increasing next year to 54.7 million and by 2014, topping 200 million. The majority of sales this year are expected to come from the US market but from 2011 that will shift towards the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
The effect of this popularity is going to be bad news for other portable devices however. “The all-in-one nature of media tablets will result in the cannibalisation of other consumer electronics devices such as e-readers, gaming devices and media players,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.<\/p>\n
The hardest hit sector will be the mini-notebook, or netbook market which will compete on price and functionality.<\/p>\n
Gartner says that the 7-inch tablet PC market could affect sales of smartphones, although they did note that users in this sector might just opt for a cheaper smartphone rather than a small-form tablet. Speaking earlier this week, Steve Jobs<\/a> made a similar point calling the 7-inch tablet devices “tweeners” – too big to be a smartphone, too small to compete with the iPad.<\/p>\n Jobs said that Apple had no plans to produce a 7-inch tablet PC.<\/p>\n Gartner says that it believes that cannibalisation of other mobile device sectors will not affect the low-end notebook market. The major impact will be on the 7-inch tablets and smartphones. Many users in this market will find it hard to justify owning both of these devices.<\/p>\n