IDC ups its tablet shipment forecasts for 2011 to 53.5m

But analyst firm says the first quarter of 2011 was more sluggish than expected.

Analyst firm IDC predicts that 53.5 million media tablets will ship this year, more than its previous forecast of 50.4 million units. This is despite sales falling by 28% between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 according to IDC's tracking.

The company highlights seasonal demand as one reason for that slump, but also suggests that "supply-chain hiccups" and the pre-release announcement of the iPad 2 hit sales of Apple's tablet, while rival Android devices were affected by the way they were often tied to 3G contracts.

"Like the PC market, media tablets had a bit of a challenging quarter in Q1, as concerns about general macroeconomic issues and the post-holiday letdown took a toll on demand," says IDC's Bob O'Donnell. "We expect the rest of the year to be much stronger, but we believe vendors who continue to focus on the telco channel for distribution will face serious challenges."

IDC has also predicted that 16.2 million e-reader devices will be shipped in 2011, up 24% on 2010. Interestingly, IDC thinks Barnes & Noble's Nook devices are outselling Amazon's Kindle.

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