Despite phenomenal growth in sales during 2013, it seems that the tablet market will slow down during this year.
That’s according to market research company IDC that said the total tablet market – including stand alone units and 2-in-1 devices – will grow by 19.4 percent this year, down from 51.6 percent in 2013.
There is slowing growth at the consumer end of the market, and average selling prices (ASPs) have fallen rapidly in the tablet market.
Prices in 2013 dropped by 14.6 percent but IDC said price erosion “has started to slowly bottom out”, meaning ASPs will only fall by 3.6 percent this year.
Tom Mainelli, who runs devices and displays at IDC, said the white box tablet market will slow this year. In mature markets, people are sticking with their current tablets and few feel the need to upgrade them, he said.
But there’s always a silver lining to every cloud. He said that commercial shipments are set to go up and while tablet growth has largely been confined to verticals like education, in the future tablets will penetrate SMEs globally. And that will give a boost to Microsoft Windows.
Jitesh Ubrani, a research colleague of Mainelli, thinks that Android and iOS will stay as the dominant forces although Windows could grab more than a quarter of the market in the future.
