Today we published our full calendar year 2011 tablet apps processor market share numbers. Based on our estimates, the global tablet apps processor market registered a staggering 230 percent year-on-year growth in 2011.

With Apple expected to announce its iPad 3 product today, the tablet market is poised for accelerated growth in the coming quarters. We expect strong efforts from Amazon, Google and Microsoft will serve as key catalysts for the non-Apple tablet vendors in 2012.  The main component beneficiaries are likely to be existing leaders TI and NVIDIA and catch-up players Intel and Qualcomm.

Some key highlights from our global tablet apps processor quarterly market share tracker:

• Apple, Texas Instruments (TI), NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Samsung featured in our top-five tablet apps processor market share rankings.

• In terms of architecture split, ARM-based processors accounted for approximately 98 percent of total tablet apps processor shipments in 2011, by our estimates. Key x86 players Intel and AMD are both expected to participate actively in Android 4.0 and Windows 8 based tablets this year.

• Apple led the applications processor market with 59 percent shipment share in 2011 on the strength of strong global demand for its iPad 2 product. Apple faced strong competition from chip suppliers to Android-based tablets, particularly in the second half of 2011.

In the non-Apple tablet apps processor market, TI and NVIDIA grabbed the lion’s share in 2011. TI led the non-iPad tablet apps processor market with 35 percent share followed by NVIDIA with 34 percent share in 2011;

• TI’s tablet success can be attributed to its high-volume design-wins at Amazon (Kindle Fire) and Barnes & Noble (Nook).

• In contrast to the smartphone market, NVIDIA performed well in the tablet market, thanks to its design-wins at Acer, Asus, Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola, Toshiba and others. NVIDIA is well positioned to capture further share in tablets with its quad-core Tegra 3 processor in 2012.

• The smartphone processor market leader Qualcomm and the PC processor market leader Intel both missed the tablet boat in 2011. We believe that Qualcomm is well-positioned to capture meaningful share in LTE tablets and Windows 8 tablets in 2012. Intel is also expected to ramp up its tablet activity in 2012 to defend its dominant share in Windows PCs.

• We think Broadcom, ST-Ericsson, MediaTek, Marvell and Renesas need to improve their tablet market focus in 2012 as these companies haven’t scored significant tablet design-wins so far.