According to the IDC, sales of tablets through mobile carriers face an obstacle of getting customers to sign up for their 3G or 4G data plans that are a requirement for purchasing these devices. As a result, they have only seen moderate success.

Canaccord analysts suggest another reason for the iPad 2′s dominence: Price-point.

“Our checks indicate both the Motorola Xoom and RIM PlayBook have not sold well at current price points, as we believe competing tablets must sell at a substantial discount to the iPad 2,” wrote analyst Michael Walkley and his co-authors.

They add that Apple currently holds 56 percent of the global tablet market, Samsung a distant second at 12 percent, and ASUS at 5 percent. They also predict that by 2012 Apple will lose about 5 percent of its market share as more rivals come to the fore.

Finally, market researcher comScore has said that the iPad accounts for 89 percent of global tablet Internet traffic in May 2011.

The dominance of the iPad is also seen in Asia, says IDC. While they predict a ten-fold increase in the number of tablets shipped, the growth will mostly be driven by Apple.

Photo: Erik Hörnfeldt

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Get well soon, Steve! Now the rest of you, stop panicking!!, [2] Google closes down lesser known services, [3] Google Chrome gets Mac and Linux deadline and extensions foundation, [4] Apple’s MobileMe free trials could lose your data, [5] We can’t get enough of the Palm Pre! – Under the hood – Great article about the Pre, [6] More CES!
(i) Dell Adamo, (ii) Samsung announces a unified User Interface across their products, (iii) The LG watch phone, (iv) Asus comes up with a whole bunch of stuff (including a cool keyboard, a NAS and a tablet) and the Byte of the Week: Poladroid.net. Do click and check out their podcast.

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Apple’s open secret: SproutCore is Cocoa for the Web, (2) Youtube tries long form content, (3) Communicasia and multitude cellphone announcements, (4)iPhone wannabes and why they don’t cut it or why they DO!?:, (5) ASUS gets official with Atom-powered Eee Box, (6) Nvidia and AMD launch TONNES of new graphics cards and Snow Leopard, (7) Solar energy concentration by 1000 at a low cost and SMALL sized?!, (8) Opera 9.5 vs Firefox 3, (9) SIA A380 Super-Jumbo made from Lego and finally, Byte of the Week: Spore Creature Creator. Do click and check out their podcast.

From the Tech65 team, here are the highlights of their podcast: Stories this Week: (a) BarcampSingaporeII, (b) Singapore students putting their identities at risk?, (c) StarHub ‘blocking file-share program’ aka BitTorrent, (d) SingTel launches mio TV on Mobile, (e) HTC Touch Diamond launches in Singapore, (f) Asus to embed Linux into all motherboards, (g) MS Office to support outside open formats, (h) Guitar Hero World Tour and finally, byte of The week: Google Browser Sync. Click here for the main podcast of the episode. If you don’t think you have enough, check the additional podcast with the Tech65 interviewing Ridzuan and U-Zyn, the founders of Widgeo.us.