Apple is set to strengthen its hold on the global tablet market, according to new stats from IDC, dampening recent optimism regarding the ability of Android-based tablets to further challenge the iPad. The research firm tips Apple’s market-leading device to control 62.5% of the market this year, up from 58.2% in 2011, while Android’s share is set to dip, from 38.7% to 36.5% during the same period. IDC attributes Apple’s success to the launch of the latest iPad, which boasted enough new features to persuade consumers to upgrade, and the decision to leave the iPad 2 on sale at a lower price point, giving more options to consumers.

IDC’s forecasts will make bleak reading for RIM, as the research firm tips its floundering BlackBerry Playbook tablet to take a meagre 1% of the global market by the end of the year, down from 1.7% in 2011. The estimates are marginally harsher than recent research by Gartner, which forecast that RIM could account for 2.2% of the global market this year.

Overall, global tablet shipments are expected to hit 107.4m units in 2012, before rising to 222.1m units by 2016. The research house is also touting Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 OS to boost tablet sales, though it does not break out specifically how the multi-platform software could fare. While tablet popularity continues to grow unabated, IDC is not so optimistic for the welfare of the e-reader market, forecasting global sales to remain flat year on year, with 28m units shipped by the end of 2012.

Mobile commerce appears to be growing hand in hand with smartphone and tablet adoption, with the latter device cited to be an increasingly important component in m-commerce. Separate stats from eMarketer assert that as many as one in four Americans will use a tablet to shop by the end of this year. The research firm claims that the device has moved beyond early adopters, and US consumers are increasingly viewing the device as “a personal, no-pressure salesperson”.

eMarketer believes that the US tablet market will continue its triple-digit growth into 2012, increasing 106.5% year on year, with 69.6m devices in use, representing 22% of the population. That figure is set to almost double in the next four years, hitting 133.5m by 2016. However, year-on-year growth is set to slow as the market matures, with more than 40% of the US owning a tablet by 2016, according to eMarketer.