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New research from Strategy Analytics reveals that NVIDIA's Tegra SoC accounts for 34.4 percent of non-iPad tablets shipped in Q1. The only real surprise there for us is that the proportion wasn't greater, given NVIDIA's near-monopoly of Android 3.0 tablets by virtue of being the chip of choice for the Motorola Xoom reference platform.
SA goes on to estimate that NVIDIA's share of non-iPads increased to 48.6 percent in Q2, which is still surprisingly low, considering. The interesting trend will be if Tegra is able to grow further, of if Q2 will represent its peak. Let's not forget the BlackBerry PlayBook didn't launch until Q2 and it uses a TI OMAP 4430, while the HTC Flyer - launched in February - runs a Qualcomm MSM8255.
And then there's the HP Touchpad, which features a Snapdragon APQ8060. Yes it was a flop initially, but the fire-sale has seen people queuing up to get one and we're going to see a big spike in TouchPad sales in Q3.
"The non-iPad camp is still waiting for a blockbuster product and we believe most tablet apps processor suppliers' fortunes are now tied up with this to see further growth," said Stuart Robinson, director of Strategy Analytics' handset component technologies programme. "We expect Amazon's rumoured tablet and Microsoft's Windows 8 platform will be catalysts for further tablet apps processor vendors' dynamics."
