2012 was a good year for the tablet market. The launch of the third- and fourth-generation iPad, the Google (News - Alert) Nexus tablets, the Kindle Fire HD and the Microsoft Surface all saw the tablet industry beat up on desktop PC sales.

According to NPD DisplaySearch, tablets are now taking on notebook PCs and are expected to surpass the 207 million notebooks that will be shipping in 2013 by more than 30 million sales.

New demand for tablets has been attributed to the rapid development of new screen sizes. In particular, 2013 is expected to bring with it a new class of small tablets. About 45 percent of these tablets will have smaller screen sizes in the range of seven to eight inches, while 9.7-inch tablets, led by the iPad, will account for 17 percent of the tablet market share.

Emerging markets like China are also expected to fuel tablet demand by becoming the second-largest global tablet market in 2013, accounting for 27 percent of all tablet shipments. According to a senior analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, a company that provides global information services to drive better business decisions, tablets’ domination saw increasing investments in North America in 2012 – efforts that will account for more expected global demand and growth.

These findings in no way signal the death of notebook PCs. By 2017, it is estimated that notebook PC shipments will rise to 393 million units. Tablet domination, said to rise to 416 million units by 2017, has been attributed to the adoption of these form factors in mature markets across North America, Japan and Western Europe.

These markets will continue to be the primary regions for tablet PC adoption, as it has been for the last few years. New entrants are also launching their initial products in these already established markets.

What’s the reason behind these moves? According to Richard Shim of NPD DisplaySearch, “Services and infrastructure needed to create compelling new usage models are often better established in mature markets.”

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