Apple is likely to hit a pothole for sales of its iPad this year with one report estimating shipments will slump by 40 percent in this calendar quarter.
But it won’t just be Apple that will be hit by the slump, according to a report in Taiwanese wire Digitimes.
All manufacturers are likely to see a fall as shipments of large screen smartphones – so called phablets – start to erode the tablet market.
Digitimes quotes its own intelligence unit saying that shipments of tablets worldwide will be 244 million this year, a drop on last year of something like 11.8 percent.
The tablet market also faces competition from low end notebooks which are to some extent being subsidised by Microsoft and other vendors.
Tablets are not generally seen by people as products that need upgrading. Apple will have to rethink its strategy on the sector as it prepares to launch more iPad models this year.
