Gina Luk, Strategy Analytics: Global Business Tablet Market to Increase to 40M Units in 2012

January 6, 2012

The recent Strategy Analytics Wireless Enterprise (WES) Forecast, “Global Business Tablet Sales, 2010-2015,” shows that the global combined shipments of corporate-liable and personal-liable business use tablets quadrupled to reach 30 million units in 2011, and will increase to over 40 million units in 2012. Key market drivers will be:

• Robust personal-liable device demand;
• Lower wholesale device pricing; and
• Rapidly expanding distribution channels.

According to Gina Luk, Senior WES analyst and co-author of the forecast, “Businesses are finding increasing potential for tablets in the workplace – in the sales force, with high-flyer ‘C’ executives and with field workers. Although businesses represent a small portion of the global tablet market to date, the opportunity and potential for personal-liable BYOD tablets to transform the enterprise is huge following on the success of the iPad. For tablets, 2011 was a year full of pilots and trials for many organizations across the globe. Some Bring-Your-Own-Devices (BYOD) have already made their way into US and European companies. Tablet deployment and adoption will gain momentum in 2012.”

“Several technology leading companies are keen to go ahead, already deploying Apple iPads—or evaluating Android, BlackBerry Playbook or Windows tablets,” added Andrew Brown, Director of Wireless Enterprise Strategies and co-author of the forecast. “2012 will undoubtedly see growing competitive offerings, as some vendors are now placing a stronger focus on the business market.”