Tablet market booms more strongly than expected, iPad tipped to lose lead
A predicted surge of smaller, lower-priced devices in the tablet market has led market tracker IDC to increase its 2013 forecast for the worldwide tablet market to 190.9 million, up from its previous forecast of 172.4 million units.
Increases in tablet shipments have been made throughout the forecast period with an average increase of 11% between 2013 and 2016. The latest forecast update of the Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker estimates tablet shipments to be upwards of 350 million by the end of 2017.
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"One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond" said Jitesh Ubrani, Research Analyst for IDC's Tablet Tracker. "Vendors are moving quickly to compete in this space as consumers realize that these small devices are often more ideal than larger tablets for their daily consumption habits."
Android-based tablets expanded their share of the market notably in 2012, and IDC expects that trend to continue in 2013.
Android's share of the market is forecast to reach a peak of 48.8% in 2013 compared to 41.5% in IDC's previous forecast.
Android's gains come at the expense of Apple's iOS, which is expected to slip from 51% of the market in 2012 to 46% in 2013. Longer term, both iOS and Android will eventually relinquish some market share to Windows-based tablets, with Windows 8 predicted to grow from 1% of the market in 2012 to 7.4% in 2017. IDC expects Windows RT growth to remain below 3% during the forecast period.
"Microsoft's decision to push two different tablet operating systems, Windows 8 and Windows RT, has yielded poor results in the market so far," said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets. "Consumers aren't buying Windows RT's value proposition, and long term we think Microsoft and its partners would be better served by focusing their attention on improving Windows 8. Such a focus could drive better share growth in the tablet category down the road."
While IDC continues to revise its tablet forecast upward, the firm had done the opposite with the eReader forecast. The growth of low-cost tablets is clearly damaging the prospects of the single-use eReader, and IDC reduced its forecast for the category by an average of 14% between 2013 and 2016. IDC believes eReader shipments peaked in 2011 at 26.4 million units. After declining to 18.2 million units in 2012, the category is expected to grow only modestly in 2013 and 2014, before it begins a gradual and permanent decline beginning in 2015.
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Comments and questions4
IDC have been pretty poor in their previous tablet predictions. I would have thought the the iPad mini would be taking on a lot of the market share previously take by android devices.
Tablets are getting cheaper and cheaper, and people experiment with them. However, Android and other tablet OS are only good enough to power some toys; they are not serious operating systems for business use. A Windows 8 tablet / phone may change the landscape.
I think one issue facing the 'tablet' market and measuring this is what is a 'tablet'? With varying vendors offering Slate, Tablet, UltraBook, Touchbook, etc, the consumer and business buyer is getting more confused, not less.
I had a client demand a Microsoft Surface RT device recently, only to discover after much questioning that he didn't know what RT meant and didn't know what he would get if I did deliver that - he simply 'knew' he wanted one and not late but now!
As the market heats up in this area I expect to see greater attention paid by the bigger players to the mid-point prosumer segment of the market as people look for devices that carry them from home into the office and beyond.
I see pure tablets shrinking as ultrabooks get thinner, lighter and better. Why have a tablet with only half the functionality of a PC when you can have an ultrabook (with or without touchscreen) for with better perfomance and more features for only slightly more than a tablet? Given the wildly overpriced iPad, some ultrabooks are almost the same price.
I think it's folly to predict anything in the table sales area out to 2017. Phones are much easier to forecast because there isn't a competing product. The phone competition is all internal: phones vs phones, not phones vs something else. Unless the iWatch becomes a direct competitor to phones. But then iWatch to phones will be as tablets to laptops, a gimmick of medium-term popularity but ultimately people will return to devices with the most functionality.