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Tablets could suffer from smartphone growth

by on15 October 2014



Gartner warning

Beancounters at Gartner are warning that tablet sales could fall to the power of the cheaper and bigger smartphones. Gartner's Q3 and annual figures for device sales worldwide — covering smartphones and tablets as well as PCs of all sizes — shows that tablet sales in 2014 will only see 11 per cent growth over last year, compared to growth of 55 percent the year before. 

This works out to a projected 229 million tablets selling in 2014, or 9.5% of overall worldwide device sales, which will total 2.4 billion devices for the year, and 2.5 billion in 2015. In short the novelty is wearing off and tablets are getting a good kicking from Android smartphones. Devices built on Google's mobile operating system will see sales of 1.2 billion devices this year, working out to more than half of all devices sold.

Ultramobiles, the not-quite-PC and not-quite-tablet and not-quite-phone category, will remain niche but continue growing: there will be 37.6 million of these sold this year, and as befits a fast-growing but still-small category, ultramobiles will grow the fastest, doubling in sales in 2015 while the other categories continue to see only modest rises. Ultramobiles are also suffering from the same issue as tablets. People are simply not replacing them as much. 

“In the tablets segment, the downward trend is coming from the slowdown of basic ultramobiles,” Gartner concludes.

The life cycle of tablets and ultramobiles is around three years and buyers this year won't replace devices until 2018. Gartner says it projects 83 million less new tablet purchasers in 2014-2015 and 155 million less tablet replacements through 2018. 

Roberta Cozza, a Gartner analyst and co-author of the report said there are too many solid devices out there and users don't have a reason to upgrade to the new units. Cozza also confirmed Samsung is heads and shoulders above all other OEMs.

If you look at PCs, ultramobiles and phones, Samsung is still number one, with around a 20 per cent share this quarter. Samsung's fortunes are driven by Android and its share in the PC category is “tiny.”

With Apple in second place at around 10 percent, Nokia in third just behind it and Lenovo in fourth in the overall category.

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