Gartner have predicted that Apple's iPad will continue to dominate the tablet market in 2012 and will account for 61.4% of all tablet sales this year, despite the introduction of Windows 8 based tablet devices and the roll out of the Kindle Fire internationally.
Worldwide, tablets sales are expected to total around 118.9 million units, which represents a whopping 98% increase on tablet sales in 2011. The Gartner forecasts also show that the iPad will continue to dominate the market until 2016, with Android devices coming in as a close second.
According to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, there have been no notable tablet introductions yet this year as vendors wait to see what Apple and Microsoft will produce next.
Of course, the long awaited Windows 8 will soon be hitting the consumer market and as such, vendors 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”.
Despite this, Microsoft tablets are only expected to account for 4.1% of units sold this year and 11.8% of sales by the end of 2016.
"IT departments will see Windows 8 as the opportunity to deploy tablets on an OS that is familiar to them and with devices offered by many enterprise-class suppliers," Ms. Milanesi said.
Enterprise tablet sales, are forecast to account for around 35% of all tablets sold in 2015, but this allows for enterprises allowing tablet devices as part of a bring your own device (BYOD) scheme.