(Updated April 20, 2012) I've aggregated, crunched and charted the public forecasts of the tech industry's brightest analysts to see where they think the market for iPads, Amazon Kindle Fires and other Android tablets is headed.
This includes forecasts from both Wall Street and industry analysts, and is current as of April 20 March 27, 2012.
It's a follow-on to my post last year, where I also collected forecasts for 2011's iPad and tablet markets.
Interestingly, the consensus on 2011's iPad market with only six weeks left in the year (mid-November) was for 33.5 million iPads sold.
That turned to out to be a 27% undercount (based on the consensus of 42.7 million iPads sold in 2011).
Analysts have continually underestimated iPad and tablet demand. This year alone, many analysts have already raised their estimates for iPad sales twice:
- after the new iPad was unveiled on March 7;
- after it was revealed March 20 that 3 million new iPads sold in its first weekend;
Impressive. You know what's even more impressive? The $1.8 billion in revenue Apple reaped in just 3 days (based on an average selling price (ASP) of $600 per iPad).
$1.8 billion is nearly 4x larger the sales of the best global movie opening ever. That would be last summer's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, which nabbed $483 million in its first weekend.
Without further chit-chat, here are the charts and graphics. Click to see larger versions and right-click on them to save.
Overall, analysts expect about 63.5 million iPads to be sold this year worldwide. Tech analysts - Gartner, IDC, etc. - were slightly (5%) more bullish than the bank analysts.
63.5 million iPads is up 50% from 42.3 million iPads sold in 2011, which is the average of publicly-announced analyst figures from TrendForce, Strategy Analytics, DisplaySearch, Merrill Lynch and others.
Raging Bull of this crowd? Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, who sees as many as 81 million iPads sold this year. Second place goes to IHS's Rhoda Alexander with 75.3 million.
Dour Bear? Barclay's Ben Reitzes, whose most recent forecast I could find was at 51 million. Here they are again, in columnar form:
And again.
For the total global tablet market, Peter Misek of Jeffries stands out as the Raging Bull, forecasting 158 million shipments. RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky is the Big Bear, seeing about 84 million tablets sold this year.
The average prediction of 109 million is up 68% from 2011's average of 64.8 million tablets sold globally.
Here it is in graphical form. Overall, analysts expect iPads to still control 58% of the tablet market this year.
And what of the long-term? Granted, the number of forecasts for years past 2013 is much smaller; in some cases, it's a lone firm or analyst putting him or herself out there.
But I've still built out a table and stacked bar chart that includes all of the forecasts that I could find. Analysts expect the number of iPads sold to nearly quadruple from 2011 to 2016, and the number of other tablets - Android, Windows 8, RIM - to increase nearly sevenfold. iPads will still hold a tenuous lead over non-Apple tablets by 2016.
And, in stacked bar chart form.
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Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves: Enterprise Mobility Forum founder Philippe Winthrop and myself will step into the Social Media Thunderdome known as the SAP TweetChat this Friday, March 28 at noon ET/9 am PT.
If you caught our first Tweetchat last summer, then you know that Philippe and I aren't shy about mixing in jokes and verbal body slams amidst some hopefully-sensible advice for businesses going mobile today.
Look for us, again, to agree to disagree on hot-button topics such as:
- the new iPad - a big boon or a big headache for businesses?
- the coming $149 Google Nexus tablet - iPad-killer or as DOA as the Nexus smartphone was 3 years ago?
- what is the best way to COPE with the issues created by BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)?
Ask your questions and debate with us this Friday at noon ET via the hashtag #SAPchat or log into the Tweetchat room. And click on the above link to add the event to your calendar!
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