At the moment, Apple has the most popular tablet on the market and this will not change soon because the iPad 3 will probably be launched next week. The new tablet will attract the attention of a large part of users interested in buying a tablet and companies such as Samsung, Motorola or HTC are affected by this trend. However, not only Apple affects them the sales but also the cheap tablets sold in China, the Kindle Fire tablet sold by Amazon and the rumors announcing the launch of a 7-inch tablet by Google.
With Apple expected to release its new iPad soon, while Google reportedly may also launch its 7-inch tablet PC as soon as March or April, non-Apple-and-Google tablet PC brand vendors are currently experiencing heavy pressure from the attack of both firms, according to sources from notebook players. With the 10-inch tablet PC market dominated by iPad 2 and the upcoming new iPad, while the 7-inch device market may be competed for fiercely by Amazon's Kindle Fire and Google's upcoming US$199 7-inch Android 4.0 tablet PC, and the sub -US$150 tablet PC market is filled with China's white-box vendors, tablet PC vendors such as Samsung, Asustek, Acer, Toshiba, Sony and Motorola are seeing their living space shrinking quickly.
In the 10-inch tablet segment, Apple leads the market by far, in the 7-inch tablet segment, Kindle Fire is the leader, and the rest of the tablet manufacturers don't really have room to enter with their own products that record at least decent sales. At CES 2012 and Mobile World Congress 2012 ASUS, Samsung and other manufacturers presented their latest creations, but unfortunately it is hard to say if their products will sell at least a few hundred thousand copies in the next year.
