Motorola is gearing up to introduce its first tablet PC in the shape of its Xoom device as early as next month as it aims to take a share of the fast growing market sector.
Speculation has been rife about when a ten-inch alternative to the iPad would arrive from one of the world’s top consumer tech firm’s and it is now odds-on that the Xoom will test the waters for the latest Android-operated slates.
Samsung saw sales of its Android-operated Galaxy Tab pass the two million mark during the final quarter of last year as it aimed to gain ground on the market-leading iPad from Apple.
Both the Galaxy S smartphone and the Galaxy Tab tablet PC ranges have been selling strongly in recent months and are currently leading the chase for second in what are two of the newest and most dynamic mobile computing sectors.
Apple was responsible for opening up the tablet PC market in earnest just under a year ago and rival consumer tech giants have been scrambling for position ever since. Samsung was the first to introduce a slate device that operates on Google’s Android system but the competition in this context is set to intensify considerably over the next few months and throughout 2011.
Korean electronics giant Samsung is reportedly aiming to increase the number of laptop computers it sells worldwide by as much as 60 per cent over the course of this year.
According to IDC data, the company shipped roughly ten million laptops in 2011 but relevant component makers have been made aware of a target figure for this year of between 16 and 17 million.
Achieving that aim would put Samsung Electronics in at seventh on the list of the world’s biggest laptop sellers in terms of shipment numbers, a position currently occupied by Apple, Digitimes reports.
Motorola has launched a teaser ad that takes aim at the iPad from Apple and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab ahead of the impending release of its own Android operated tablet PC.
The newly released video runs through some of the best-known tablets in history, from the Moses’ 10 Commandments to the Rosetta Stone, and on a more up-to-date note, the iPad and the Galaxy Tab.
Each tablet takes some criticism before a bee flies over to a still-to-be-unveiled addition to the list, in a nod to the fact that Motorola’s up-coming tablet PC offering is to operate with the Honeycomb version of Google’s Android OS.
Cheaper alternatives to the Apple iPad will threaten the dominance of the device in the tablet PC sector as it develops into 2011.
There’s no doubt the iPad has been a resounding success with consumers in various parts of the world but lower prices on rival devices will present a challenge to Apple as it aims to maintain the massive market share it currently accounts for.
The number of PCs shipped globally over the course of this year is set to top 350 million and Gartnet attributes this mainly to tablets like the Galaxy Tab and the iPad.
Despite falling short of earlier predictions from only a few months ago, the scale of PC shipments this year looks likely to have topped the figure for the previous 12 months by 14 per cent before the year is over.
Gianfranco Lanci, chief executive of the Taiwanese computer company Acer, has asserted that his company will soon be accounting for the lion’s share of the global tablet PC market.
Speaking in New York shortly after the launch of a range of tablet PCs from Acer, Mr Lanci suggested that while Apple has stolen a march on the competition in American markets, there is all to play for in many other parts of the world.
