IDC said shimpments in the last three months of 2011 were highre than expected . as a result , the research group now projects shipments of 106 million in 2012, up from its previous forecat of nearly 88million . the new figure , out thesday represents a 54 percent increase from 69 million device shipped on 2011.
since the ipad's debut in 2010 millions of people have flocked to these easy -to-use, easy-to-carry device to watch movies , pla games and catch up on the latest news and books. the rise of tablet computers comes at a time when sales of traditional personal computers are slowing , particularly among consumers in the US and other industrialized countries . another research group , gartner , has forecast that PC shipments will grow at a relatively weak 4 percent this year as products fail to excite consumer the way tablets have. bit traditional pc makers have sparked much of their growth by turning to emerging markets.
in industrialized markets, there's evidence that people are delaying replacement for their years-old PCs and bying tablets instead. "frankly,most are just waiting for a compelling reason to upgrade," said tom mainelli . IDC's research director for mobile connected devices.
apple sold more than 40 million ipads last year , including 15 million in the holiday quarter , high demand is expected when a third version with a sharper screen ad a faster processing chip, goes sale friday. although some researchers estimate that apple has more than 60 percent of the market for tablets, rivals have done well . the kindle fire came out on November with a lower price tag of $499 and up for the ipad at the time. the fire has a smaller screen and fewer features, but it's good enough for many consumers. IDC estimates that amazon.com inc shipped 4.7 million kindle fires y year's end.
Mainelli said he initially expected the fire, which runs on a modified version of google's android system , to take sale away from other android tablets. instead , the fire's success may have helped other android products, too, including samsung electronics co's galaxy device and barnes and noble inc's nook tablet. "it seems all the attention that the fire launch garnered raised awareness of media tablets in general, and a great number of vendors benefited from this increased awareness ," he said.
The 68.7 million tablets shipped in 2011 represents a 9 percent increase from IDC's forecast of 6303million and is about 305 times the 19.4million shipped in 2010. IDC says 2802 million tablet computers were shipped on the final three months of 2011, about 2.5 about 2.5 time more than a year earlier.
