Ovum principal analyst Adam Leach said that in such a fast-moving market, Apple was forced to release a new version of its iPad hardware to stay ahead.

"Apple clearly had first mover advantage. However, its competitors have been hot on its heals with a slew of tablet devices from big brand vendors such as Samsung, Motorola, HP, HTC and RIM, all of which have announced tablet devices which aim to replicate the Apple experience, which is notoriously difficult to match," Leach said.

"Much of the early growth of the tablet market can be attributable to the Apple iPad, a device whose sales constituted 90 per cent of the total market opportunity in 2010. The remaining 10 per cent of shipments in 2010 was made up of devices running variants of Google's Android OS".

Leach said most device vendors are looking to exploit Google's latest version of the Android operating system, honeycomb, to deliver a user experience that can compete with Apple's own iOS.