Apple's iPad will continue to dominate the surging media tablet market for years, with Google playing catch-up, research firm Gartner said on Monday.
Gartner said it expects 70 million media tablets to be sold this year and 108 million in 2012, compared with just 17.6 million in 2010.
Apple's share of the market will gradually decline to 47 per cent in 2015 from 69 per cent this year, while Google's share will rise to 39 per cent from 20 per cent now.
Google's Android has stormed the smartphone market, where it will become the No 1 platform this year, and it has emerged as the only viable solution for tablet-makers who do not own their own operating system.
Research In Motion's QNX platform, used in its soon-to-be-launched PlayBook tablet, will take the No.3 position on the market this year, with a 5.6 per cent share. Gartner sees that rising to 10 per cent in 2015.
"It will take time and significant effort for RIM to attract developers and deliver a compelling ecosystem of applications and services around QNX to position it as a viable alternative to Apple or Android," Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said.