Tablet PC sales soar

Shipments of tablet PCs topped 72,000 units in the fourth quarter of last year, and will "grow considerably" this year, according to research firm IDC.

Tablet PCs first became available last November and are based on Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition software.

IDC said in a report: "With only six weeks of potential shipments to record and the form factor's relative infancy in the face of other competing, more established devices, IDC believes that initial shipment volume represents a good start at securing a role in the crowded mobile device arena."

The report comes as tablet PC manufacturers have been witnessing strong demand for the product. Top vendors Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba have said sales of their tablet PCs are exceeding predictions made before the devices' November launch.

Tablet PCs are still a fairly small segment of the overall notebook market. But the devices have so far been a bright spot for manufacturers, which are still feeling the effects of the PC market crash of 2001. The smaller machines have generated interest among the legal, real estate and health care industries, as well as from some consumers, executives from Toshiba and HP said.

IDC said HP's tablet PC shipments beat those of Fujitsu, which has more than 10 years of experience making a similar portable device. HP shipped more than 17,000 units worldwide last year, IDC said.

The US was the biggest market for tablet PC shipments, accounting for about half the total volume, IDC found. But Western Europe, Japan and the Asia-Pacific region also have strong potential for the product, said IDC analyst Alan Promisel.

In Asia, that's partly because of the way tablet PCs make it easier to enter Asian language into a computer, he suggested. "Handwriting is a quicker input method than the keyboard for that region," Promisel said.