We’ve briefly told you about a report that sees great increase in touch tablets market share in the years to come and now it’s time to take a peak at some numbers, predictions of things to come. We have actually two reports we want to share with you, one from Gartner that says devices with touch input will be enjoyed more by kids at beginning and then gradually will penetrate into adults habits of using gadgets and later will make way into business devices.

    Why will tablets become mainstream for business users later has to do with change, which implies money and time investments to develop special apps that will use the new input method. It’s clear that the young generation, who will use tablets at first, will get accustomed with them and will continue using them once they grow old. Till then businesses will likely shift slowly towards tablets and touch input.

    Now, the second report talks about numbers: total units sold from each type of device and market value for 2010 and upcoming years. Total numbers expected for 2010 are 215 million portable units sold and 117 billion dollars value, which translates in about 25 % increase from last year. Even if tablets and slate devices are expected to grow the most from the total of portables sold world wide, the total market share will be around 2.3%. But things are going to change starting with 2011, when consumer habits will shift toward browsing/media consumption devices, especially for people who don’t use intensively their computers all day long (unlike me). The regions that will support this growth are North America and Western Europe.

    Even if things won’t turn out like expected, I’m sure the market for tablets and light computing devices will increase exponentially in next years.

    Market distribution for portable devices

    Market distribution for portable devices