Apple to release new iPad

Apple Inc, set to release a new iPad tablet on Wednesday, doesn’t have an Android-based competitor with more than five per cent of the market, Forrester Research Inc said in a report published on Tuesday.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, controls 73 per cent of the market, while Samsung Electronics Co, Sony Corp and Toshiba Corp are among companies making incremental improvements to tablets without bringing services that cut into the market share, Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester, said in the report.

Android-based tablets have been priced in the same range as iPads with inconsistent branding, Epps said. Amazon Inc’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook tablets may vie for second place because they build features on top of Android without using the brand and sell for a lower price, she said.

“Tablets are about services,” Epps said in a telephone interview yesterday. “That is where Amazon has succeeded where others have failed.”

When Forrester carried out its survey in September, Hewlett-Packard was in second place to Apple with six per cent of the tablet market, followed by Samsung Electronics Co, Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc and Acer Inc, with five per cent, four per cent and three per cent, respectively. HP cut the price of its TouchPads to $99 before it stopped selling them.

About one-third of the US adult population will own a tablet by 2016, as more people bring them to their workplaces, according to Forrester. The majority of tablets used for work are paid for by the employee, the research company also said.

‘Growing faster’
“This market is growing faster than we expected, faster than anyone expected,” Epps said.

In September, before Amazon's Kindle Fire was released, 24 per cent of consumers surveyed said they would buy a tablet made by Amazon, compared with 61 percent who said they would buy an iPad and 21 per cent who said they would buy a Samsung tablet, Forrester said.

Apple is expected to release an iPad with a high-definition screen, a faster processor and compatibility with next- generation wireless networks, people familiar with the product said in January.