At present Apple iPad generally commands the market of consumer tablets simply due to the fact that it is the only one on the market and many early adopters have no choice. But after the dust settles, the market share of iPad could drop to 20% - 30%, according to the chairman of Acer Group, one of the world's largest PC makers.

JT Wang said in an interview with Chinese-language news-paper Economic Daily News (excepts from which were translated by DigiTimes web-site) that Google Android platform needed some time to develop in order to address the market of slates. Given the fact that there are tens of companies that support Android, there will be loads of various tablets and smartphones with different design, feature-set and pricing and it will be tough for Apple to compete against all of them.

In fact, even 20% - 30% global slate market share seems to be too optimistic for Apple iPad after Android, MeeGo, webOS and Windows-based tablets become widespread. As practice shows, Apple can only compete for small, yet rapid growing, fractions of the markets. The company's share on mobile phone and PC markets is in low single-digits and the only space it enjoys very high adoption rate is digital media players with its iPod.

Earlier this year the head of ARM Holdings, the company that develops processor architectures for mobile phones, slates and other low-power devices predicted that ARM would be found in 50% of such products, whereas the rest would be x86-powered. The statement means that ARM-based Apple iPad's eventual tablet market share can be much lower than 20% or even 10%.

Acer itself plans to release a Google Android-based tablet late in 2010 or early in 2010.

Tags: Acer, Apple, Android, Google, Intel, x86