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Apple's iPad to remain king of tablets: researcher

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A salesman displays an Apple iPad during its launch in Brussels July 23, 2010. The iPad became available to the public through Apple retailers in Belgium on Friday. REUTERS/Thierry Roge

A salesman displays an Apple iPad during its launch in Brussels July 23, 2010. The iPad became available to the public through Apple retailers in Belgium on Friday.

Credit: Reuters/Thierry Roge

By Liana B. Baker

NEW YORK | Wed Aug 25, 2010 12:45pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc's iPad will not face a serious competitor until next year, and when tablet rivals do emerge, they will have a hard time matching iPad's customized applications, according to a report from market research firm iSuppli.

The iPad, which likely will account for nearly three quarters of worldwide tablet shipments this year, will hold at least 70 percent of the market in 2011 and 62 percent by 2012, iSuppli said in its report on Wednesday.

Apple sold 3.3 million iPads last quarter, which is one of the best starts for a consumer electronic device.

Apple competitors like Hewlett Packard Co, Dell Inc and Lenovo Group are rolling out Android and Windows 7-based tablet devices to rival the 9.7-inch iPad, but they will struggle to compete with iPad's mix of hardware, software, operating system and applications, the firm said.

"It's still unlikely that any of the competitors will be able to equal the overall performance experience of the iPad," said Rhoda Alexander, the firm's director of monitor research.

Among other possible rivals, iSuppli cited rumors that Canada's Research in Motion is trying to enter the tablet market with its recent purchase of the domain name "BlackPad."

It dismissed reports that Google will release a Chrome OS tablet on Nov 26, saying "any touch-enabled Chrome based device would be more likely to appear in 2011 or beyond."

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker. Editing by Robert MacMillan)
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Comments (4)
RPrice wrote:
Nonsense. The iPad will remain king of toy tablets and king of Apple-fanatic tablets. There will be highly productive, more business-like tablets in the near future, with more compatible features for business, e.g. Microsoft Office. They will feature touch screen and keyboards and can be useful for many more required activities than the iPad toy. However, for individuals who just like to play, the iPad will have thousands and thousands of apps that are as useless as tits on a boar.

Aug 25, 2010 4:35pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
tangogo68 wrote:
‘RPrice’ apparently knows better than iSuppli, and thinks he is much more astute than the millions of people who have bought iPads — gee, I wonder where his research comes from — my household has two iPads (soon to be three), which work wonderfully well with the two iPod Touches and the three iPhones — we have hundreds of diverse apps, and regularly use dozens of them, beyond the email & web & movie watching & photo editing etc. — I am an academic, my wife is a teacher,, and we use our iPads more for work than for content consumption — for us, they are tools ahead of being toys, but of course they are both, and they work incredibly fast with a staggeringly long battery endurance — to dismiss such a device as a toy makes you sound like a fool.

Aug 25, 2010 8:43pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
xiaoa wrote:
of course! in my opinion , i think ipad is invincible , whether the google ipad , the BB ipad or this Samsang , they all can’t beat ipad ~ i am using ipad and i support it . if you get a ipad , if you also a movie fans , you must download a Aneesoft ipad video covnerter like me which will give you another surprise ~

Aug 25, 2010 11:18pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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