The Register reports on a recent Gartner forecast which predicts astonishing sales for the iPad.

Tablet sales will more than double in the next year, with general-purpose machines taking business from mini notebooks and single-function tablets such as Amazon’s Kindle.

The iPad will drive sales of media tablets in 2011, with 54.8 million units projected to ship worldwide according to Gartner compared to 19.5 million tablets this year.

North America will account for more than half of media tablet sales this year, but as they become available elsewhere, this proportion will drop to 43 per cent by 2014.

Gartner vice president of research Carolina Milanesi said in a statement that all-in-one tablets will cannibalize sales of e-readers, gaming devices and media players.

“Mini notebooks will suffer from the strongest cannibalization threat as media tablet average selling prices (ASPs) drop below $300 over the next two years,” Milanesi said.

Gartner didn’t use the phrase, but it probably meant netbooks.