Sales of tablets, such as iPad, Kindle Fire and other Android tablets for the first time will surpass sales of PCs in the fourth quarter of this year, supported by orders during the winter holidays, according to analysts from research firm IDC, quoted by the Financial Times.
The change highlights the new “post-PC era” predicted by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and comes just three years after the Cupertino-based company launched the iPad. Despite developments in the fourth quarter, total annual shipments of PCs, including desktops and laptops will still exceed those of tablets before 2015, according to IDC.
Therefore, in a market that includes smartphones, PC shipments will record a market share of 20.2 percent this year, the tablets will be at 14.6 percent, while smartphones will represent 65 percent of sales. PC sales are expected to drop by 2017 to 13 percent.
IDC expects that once completed, the strong development of tablets on the market will cause another transition, namely the rise of smartphone-tablet hybrid, with 5-inch screens or larger.
“The device world has seen several iterations of cannibalisation impacting different categories, with the last few years focused on tablets cannibalising PC sales. Over the next 12-18 months, however, we believe the larger smartphones, commonly called ‘phablets’, will start to eat into the smaller-size tablet market, contributing to a slower growth rate for tablets,” said Bob O’Donnell, program vice president, Clients and Displays.
Much of the growth in the industry will come from sales of cheap smartphones, IDC notes. More than two thirds of the market that includes devices with internet connection, estimated at $622 billion this year, will be represented by smartphones and cheap tablets with prices under $350.
“At a time when the smartphone and tablet markets are showing early signs of saturation, the emergence of lower-priced devices will be a game-changer,” said Megha Saini, research analyst with IDC.
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