We’ve been saying that the tablet industry is going down. It’s happening slowly but we have a feeling it will only continue to decline in the coming years. Tablets may not be extinct just yet but it sure is going in that direction as smartphones become bigger, more intelligent, and even more affordable. Phone-tablets aka phablets are more powerful than ever that some people don’t even need to get a tablet or a laptop to be more productive for work.
We once thought that tablets would take over desktop computers and laptops but they didn’t. We’ve been saying the same thing since year 2015 and once predicted detachable ones would increase. Well, that one didn’t happen as well, at least not yet, becase worldwide tablet market share is still going down.
The latest IDC report tells us again of the situation during the first quarter of the year. Q1 2017 saw 36.2 million tablets shipping from OEMs which is an 8.5% decline from last year, same period. The International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker report shows the industry that there is a little chance to improve since it’s already the tenth quarter the figures are bad.
The tablet market is actually divided into two categories: slates and detachable tablets. Slates are tablets without any physical keyboard while detachable tablets are those that have a keyboard that can be be attached to one side if you want to work and do a lot of typing. Detachable tablets are still growing albeit slowly. Some of them can already be considered as laptops.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers Program Vice President Ryan Reith said “it appears for many reasons consumers became less eager to refresh these devices, or in some instances purchase them at all. We continue to believe the leading driver for this was the increased dependency on smartphones, along with rather minimal technology and form factor progression.” We agree because smartphones are becoming really powerful.
It’s not only tablet growth that is getting worse. Even the PC game is stagnant. It’s not really declining. In fact, it saw a slight growth but very flat.
According to IDC, convertibles (laptop-tablet) are being overtaken now by detachables. Note that the two are different. However, the gap between the two is closing in and perhaps a few quarters from today, the market will change significantly. There might be more detachables in the future compared to convertibles so we’ll see.
SOURCE: IDC
