Can Anybody Unseat iPad?

Google is rumored to be preparing to launch a branded tablet of its own. The new "Nexus" tablet reportedly will have a seven-inch form factor, and be released mid-year, with a formal announcement coming potentially as early as May 2012.

The device would sell for as little as $149 in a Wi-Fi-only version. At that price point, Google would seem to be aiming directly at the Kindle Fire, which has been selling in volumes that make the Kindle Fire the first non-iPad device to get traction.

Some will argue the device will debut with a content ecosystem less well developed. So the issue might be "why" users buy the device. People buying the Kindle Fire arguably have been doing so for access to Amazon's rather rich content offerings.

On the other hand, some users will note that the Kindle Fire has been designed as a convenient gateway to Amazon content, but arguably does not work as well as a general-purpose tablet for web content.

The issue, some might say, is whether any such Nexus tablet will take on the iPad or only the Kindle Fire.

Apple iPad penetration in the United States will nearly double from 2011 to 2013, from just over 12 percent of internet users to 22 percent. But other suppliers will whittle Apple's market share from 83 percent in 2011 to 68 percent at the end of 2014, eMarketer predicts.

There will be 54.8 million tablet users in the United States by the end of 2012, eMarketer predicts By the end of 2014, that number will nearly double to 89.5 million.

The adage that "there is no tablet market, only an iPad market" is no longer as true as it was a few years ago. But it still might be fair to say there is an iPad market, and then a tablet market. When one supplier has 70 percent market share, it is analogous to the MP3 player market, which wound up being an iPod market, with some other providers.

In 2011, for example, Apple continued to hold 78 percent of the music player market. That is what "terrifies" other competitors. Apple has more than once showed an ability to dominate a new consumer electronics category.

The mobile phone market is more complicated, as Apple does not compete in the feature phone category. In the smart phone category, Apple has about 30 percent share, globally.

But Apple has managed to achieve an important distinction. By itself, Apple earns 62 percent or so of all smart phone supplier operating profit, according to Strategy Analytics.

Apple in the fourth quarter of 2011 shipped 37 million smart phones worldwide, up 117 percent from 17 million in the second quarter. This represented the strongest sequential quarterly growth among the top-five smart phone brands, according to IHS ISuppli.

The “nightmare” for all the other competitors is that Apple seems quite able to create new markets others have difficulty entering.