Tablets to drive mobile broadband market in 2011

Mobile tablet

Booming sales of tablets in 2011 will help drive a 57.8 percent increase in shipments of mobile broadband devices, according to a study by IHS. Shipments of mobile broadband devices in 2011 are projected to climb to 157.9 million units, up from 100.1 million units in 2010. Aside from tablets, the mobile broadband segment includes devices such as notebook and netbook computers, as well as e-book readers. This year's growth rate for mobile broadband devices parallels the 57.4 percent expansion of 2010, and coming on top of a larger base affirms the market's strong performance for the second year in a row. Shipments will continue to rise during the next few years but at lower rates, declining to 38.1 percent in 2012 and gradually trending downward until 11.0 percent in 2015 to some 350.7 million units. The five-year CAGR, computed from the starting year of 2010, stands at 28.5 percent. Within the segment, tablets will represent the fastest-growing mobile

ipad2......another mobile tablet

broadband device this year with shipments projected to reach 58.9 million units, up 239.3 percent from 17.4 million in 2010. Of the various ways to enable broadband access for consumer electronics devices, mobile hotspots and embedded chipsets are the fastest-growing methods, growing 25 to 50 percent faster than the overall market, according to IHS. By 2015, the majority of mobile broadband devices will use LTE, the market researcher expects, in line with consumer demand for faster speeds and, perhaps more important, lower latencies or delays from their mobile broadband networks.