Apple will stake out a dominant position in the tablet market in the coming years, according to a report from research firm iSuppli. The report states that the Apple tablet could claim as much as three quarters of all tablet sales this year and continue to carry the top spot in the market into 2012.

iSuppli analysts predict the iPad will dominate the market in the same way that Apple’s iPhone has in the smartphone market. It sees Apple setting a benchmark with iPad that will send competitors back to their drawing boards. “Although the iPad has been on the market for only a few months, powerful interests throughout the technology business are devoting enormous resources to challenge and topple Apple’s domination in this fast-growing marketplace,” comments iSuppli monitor research director Rhoda Alexander. “However, if recent history is any lesson, it will take some time for these companies to get their products to market, longer for them to offer necessary software support and infrastructure, and an even lengthier period to begin to rival the overall user experience Apple is able to deliver.”

Elsewhere, a report in the Daily Telegraph claims that sumo wrestlers in Japan have been given iPads because their fingers are too fat to use a standard mobile phone. It may come as a shock that the highly traditional Japanese sportsmen are choosing a device made by ‘foreign devils’, but sumo association chief Hanaregoma commented: “It seems rather easy to use. Sending emails was very easy. But time flies if you play with this.”