Your notebook is about to become passé. Shipments of tablets will outpace those of notebooks for the first time next year.

So says DigiTimes Research analyst James Wang, who predicts global tablet shipments will rocket to 210 million in 2013, an increase of 38.3 per cent on 2012.

Of that number, Wang projects that Apple will retain its position as the number-one tablet vendor of 2013, but its market share will drop to 55.6 percent, down from over 60 per cent this year.

Google, Wang says, will "maintain its momentum" achieved by the Nexus fondleslab line, and become the second largest branded-tablet vendor, pushing 19 million units.

We say branded because Wang reckons "surging shipment growth" for white-box tablets: 70 million will be produced in 2013, leaving Apple, Google, and their few remaining branded competitors to fight over that remaining 140 million next year.

That white-box growth, he maintains, will make Android tablets the global market leader in 2013, with 121 million tablets sold, up 40.2 per cent on 2012.

By 2015 white-box tablet sales will reach 100 million of the 320 million tablet sales he projects for that year. ®