ARM powered tablets will grow 211 per cent in 2011

BEANCOUNTERS at Displaysearch believe that tablets with ARM chips will grow 211 per cent to 59.9 million units this year.

Along with this, the firm forecasts that x86 based tablets will not see strong growth until 2013. This will coincide with Windows 8 taking significant share in the same year, it predicts.

"The tablet PC and notebook PC markets are on a collision course as both product categories continue to evolve and improve on their respective weaknesses," said Richard Shim, senior analyst at Displaysearch. "As such, each product category will influence the other over time. Still, the incumbent platforms have inherent advantages in the early years."

If 60 million units worldwide for tablets doesn't sound like a lot, a total of 330 million units are expected to have been shipped by 2017.

ARM announced its most energy efficient chip last week, the Cortex A7.

According to Displaysearch, more brands will challenge Apple in the PC market by experimenting with alternative operating systems. With HP ditching WebOS, we guess that it means the big players like Android and the upcoming Windows 8. µ