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In some ways, doesn’t it seem like not very long ago at all that everyone was wondering ‘what’ exactly Apple would be releasing in the days and weeks leading up to the announcement that the now-ubiquitous iPad would be launching.
About 18 months ago, before the Apple seminal tablets changed technology (again), tablets were something that manufacturers tried to strike up interest in every so often, but they never really stuck. Less than two years later, it’s predicted that in another two years’ time, a third of web users will be accessing the internet using an iPad or tablet of a different description.
It’s a bit early to tell whether Apple will achieve a lock on the industry similar to that gained by iPod a decade ago for the MP3 genre, as Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet have just really launched. (And users were able to get a feel for predecessors with the original Kindle and Nook devices.)
eMarketer forecasted tablet adoption rates, as well as illustrating some current stats:
eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2011, 33.7 million Americans will use a tablet device at least monthly—a rise of 158.6% over last year, the year the iPad was released… The iPad, which has clearly led the tablet market since 2010, will continue to do so throughout the forecast period, though its share will be slowly chipped away by competititors. The number of US iPad users will more than double between this year and 2014, from 28 million to 60.8 million. By 2014 iPad users will still account for 68% of the overall US tablet audience.
Of the projected users, 49.3% are expected to be over the age of 35, while 34.8% are expected to be in the 18-34 year old demographic.
