BEIJING - China's tablet PC market will experience growth of more than 300 percent growth, which will dramatically affect the traditional PC market, and low-tier cities and rural areas are going to become the key drivers of China's PC market in 2011, according to IT market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

According to IDC, sales of tablet PCs will exceed 2.5 million units in China next year, an increase of over 300 percent from about 600,000 units this year.

The growth rate of the traditional PC market will slow down to 14.5 percent year-on-year, dropping about 5 percentage points from 19.3 percent last year.

"The appearance of tablet PCs will definitely effect the traditional PC market significantly in 2011," Kitty Fok, vice-president of IDC Asia-Pacific, told China Daily.

She pointed out that in the short term, the rate of PC purchases will decrease in line with China's GDP, so the growth rate of the PC market is not expected to be as high as in 2010.

"2010 will be a hard year for PC companies in China, especially for multinational companies," said Fok. "But a good opportunity still exists for media tablets in the market, even for local tablet PC makers."

The industry saw a greater variety of applications launched for tablet products in 2010.

Although the tablet market is less than one-tenth the size of the cell phone and notebook markets, IDC believes that the development of the media tablet sector is of critical significance to the integrated development of the IT industry, the convenience of personal-computing mobility, and applications in the business market.

After Apple launched its iPad early this year, Chinese consumers and IT manufacturers showed a great interest in the tablet PC industry.

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The iPad accounted for a high percentage of the more than 600,000 tablet PCs sold in the Chinese market in 2010.

Since its launch, the iPad is facing a severe supply shortage in the Chinese market.

"I went to the two Apple stores in Beijing but since they were sold out, I had to book it online or go to Zhongguancun, the city's biggest electronic market, to buy one," said Guo Xiaojun, a 25-year-old Beijing resident.

"We can sell at least 30 iPads every day," said Li Lianhai, one of the many iPad vendors at Zhongguancun. "Our sales figures keep increasing."

In 2011, China's tablet PC market will face all-round competition, including competition from retailers and competition between operating systems, telecommunication operators, and platform structure suppliers, according to IDC.

Lenovo Group, China's biggest PC maker, announced earlier this year that the company will launch its tablet PC next year. Dell CEO Michael Dell mentioned recently that his company will introduce its tablet PC in China next year as well.

IT giants, including Samsung and Huawei, are preparing to grab market share in the tablet PC industry next year.

Smaller cities and rural areas will be the key drivers for next year's IT industry, said Fok from IDC.

"The government will implement policies to stimulate rural markets according to the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), and the market size of the IT industry will reach $109.9 billion in 2011," she said.

The central and western regions, and fourth- to sixth-tier cities in China will provide the strongest growth in the IT market next year.

In 2010, China's IT market regained rapid growth after surviving the economic crisis.

Geographically, prefecture- and county-level cities showed higher growth in the consumer PC market than large cities, and became the major driving force behind the IT market growth.

"We saw a significant number of IT companies move their factories to central and western regions in China, such as Chengdu and Chongqing," said Fok.

Foxconn International Holdings Ltd, Hewlett-Packard Co, Intel Corp and Acer Inc have already moved their factories to those areas this year.

She pointed out that in 2011, the trend will be even more pronounced, with IT markets in small- and medium-sized cities experiencing accelerated development.

The growth rate for fourth- to sixth-tier cities' will be 17 percent, while first- to third-tier cities will only see 10 percent growth next year.