Tablet Shipments Slated to Outpace Notebook Shipments in 2016
Tablet PCs will dominate the mobile PC market in four years, says the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report.
According to the new report, shipment of Apple's iPad and its tablet cousins will outpace those of notebooks by 2016, with even greater growth expected the following year. By 2017, tablet shipments will hit 416 million, up from 121 million in 2012. Notebook shipments will increase to 393 million, up from 208 million this year.
NPD Senior Analyst Richard Shim attributes the tablet's growth spurt to adoption rates in mature markets.
"Consumer preference for mobile computing devices is shifting from notebook to tablet PCs, particularly in mature markets," said Richard Shim, senior analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, in a prepared statement. Shim goes on to note that NPD expects "mature markets to be the primary regions for tablet PC adoption" including North America, Japan, and Western Europe. These markets, the report says, will account for 66 percent of tablet shipments this year and will continue in the 60 percent range through 2017. Over the next five years, tablet shipments into these regions will reach 254 million, up from 80 million this year.
Features like instant-on capability, robust battery life, and easy portability make the tablet PC "a compelling alternative to notebook PCs" says the report. NPD expects the tablet to continue developing, with future versions incorporating "multi-core processors, increasingly stable operating systems, growing app libraries and higher resolution displays." New versions of the notebook PC will address this challenge with slimmer form factors and high resolution displays featuring touchscreen capabilities.
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Kanoe Namahoe is online editor for 1105 Media's Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].