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November 26, 2012

Will Tablets Finally Outship Notebooks in 2012?

By Oliver VanDervoort, Contributing Writer

Black Friday (News - Alert) has come and gone, and while it will be a couple of days until we have the official numbers for some of the world’s biggest retailers, there is little doubt that money was made (and saved) at an impressive rate. One aspect to keep an eye on when the smoke clears is whether or not industry analyst NPD DisplaySearch’s projections were correct. The analyst firm claimed that this Black Friday could be the year in which tablets outsell notebooks in North America for the very first time. 



Lost in all of the Black Friday talk is that until possibly this year, notebooks were still selling better than all tablets combined. That includes the ultra popular models such as the Kindle Fire and of course, the iPad. NPD said that it was expecting as many as 21.5 million tablets shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012, with Black Friday being the biggest shopping day of the year, quite a few of those will have shipped last weekend. That number far exceeds the estimated 14.6 million notebooks that are expected to be shipped over the same time period.

Over the course of the year, NPD expects 2013 to be the first four quarter period in which tablets outsell notebooks, 80 million to 63.8 million. This is all in North America. Worldwide, tablets are going to lag behind notebooks for another couple of years and should top shipping numbers of notebooks by the end of 2015.

There are a number of factors that NPD is taking into account when projecting North America to be so far ahead of the rest of the world in tablet sales. Among the top factors is that 70 percent of homes in the U.S. already have a personal computer in their homes. That adoption rate is much higher than in the rest of the world. That amount also means that less people will need a new computer and will instead turn toward tablets this holiday season. The fact that companies like Amazon and Google (News - Alert) have dedicated themselves to tablets more actively in 2012 will also drive increased sales.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.




Edited by Rachel Ramsey
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