A Digitimes report citing unspecified “market watchers” indicates that non-Apple tablet shipments are set to grow 134% year-on-year in 2012. With 2011 shipments expected to reach about 19-20 million, 2012 could see Android-based shipments top out around 45 million units.
Late 2011 will see the launch of the next version of Google Android (Ice Cream Sandwich). This latest version, which will re-unify the currently split Android operating systems (Gingerbread for smartphones and Honeycomb for tablets) is expected to attract new consumers to the Android platform. New processors from vendors such as Nvidia, Texas Instrument and Qualcomm are also expected to launch in late 2011 and early 2012 along with new tablets. Among those will be Nvidia’s Tegra 3 (codename Kal-El) which is expected to launch in late September or early October with the second-generation ASUS Eee Pad Transformer (and the next generation Motorola XOOM?).
Don’t worry about Apple though. Its iPad tablet is set to continue to outsell its competitors with shipments expected to grow 55% in 2012 to hit about 55 million units.
The report does not mention what contribution webOS and Windows tablets could make in 2012 to non-Apple tablet shipments.