STAMFORD, CT — Worldwide media tablet sales to end-users are forecast to rise 98% year-over-year to 118.9 million units in 2012, according to Gartner.

Enterprise sales, a growing segment of the market, will account for about 35% of total tablet sales sold by 2015, Gartner said.

Apple's iOS, the dominant tablet operating system, is projected to nab a 61.4% worldwide share. Android tablets are forecast to account for 31.9%, with the main issue a lack of applications dedicated to tablets.

"Despite PC vendors and phone manufacturers wanting a piece of the pie and launching themselves into the media tablet market, so far, we have seen very limited success outside of Apple with its iPad," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "As vendors struggled to compete on price and differentiate enough on either the hardware or ecosystem, inventories were built and only 60 million units actually reached the hands of consumers across the world. The situation has not improved in early 2012, when the arrival of the new iPad has reset the benchmark for the product to beat."

"It appears that this year competitors have waited to see what Apple would bring out — because there were very few announcements of new media tablets at either the Consumer Electronics Show or Mobile World Congress. Many vendors will wait for Windows 8 to be ready and will try to enter the market with a dual-platform approach, hoping that the Microsoft brand could help them in both the enterprise and consumer markets."

Microsoft tablets are projected to account for 4.1% of media tablet sales this year, and grow to 11.8% of sales by the end of 2016. Windows 8 is Microsoft's official entrance into the media tablet market.

Table 1. Worldwide Sales of Media Tablets to End-Users, by OS (thousands of units)

Source: Gartner (April 2012)

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