Tablet PCs have good growth prospects: Gartner

With the number of users increasing, tablet PCs have good growth prospects and are also expected to foster new business models of content distribution, says research group Gartner.

According to Gartner, consumers are increasingly using tablets as a companion device to the personal computer and mobile phone to access media and information.

"The market for tablets has good growth prospects. Globally, more and more companies are going to enter this market," Research Director at Gartner Sandy Shen said.

In India, the number of tablet users are on the rise.

A tablet has larger displays than mobile phones and usually have user-friendly touch interface. Apple's iPad is prominent in this category and many other entities including HTC, Samsung and Sony also have tablet devices.

"Tablets foster new usage patterns that will enable different ways of user engagement with content and service providers and will lead to new business models of content distribution...," Gartner said.

As per Gartner's forecast late last year, worldwide media tablet sales to end-users would touch 63.6 million units in 2011 and is expected to reach 326.3 million by the end of 2015.

The report, co-authored by Sandy Shen, noted that companies developing services for the tablet should explore the potential of web-based and app-based applications.

Shen said tablet market is seeing consistent behaviour across demographics and as of now, mostly high-income people are using these devices.