Report: Worldwide Tablet Shipments Will Decline This Year, Rebound in 2018

Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to decline by 12 percent for the rest of 2016, rounding out the year at 182.3 million shipments, according to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker.

IDC, a tech and communications market research firm, expects the tablet market to rebound in 2018, though growth will remain in the low single digits as detachable tablets slowly gain traction.

“The benefits of a thin and light design combined with a touchscreen are bolstering growth in the detachable tablet market, but are also bleeding over into the PC market as slim and convertible-type notebooks gain popularity,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers, in a statement. “This is a welcome change for vendors as average selling prices for notebooks and tablets are expected to increase in the near term.”

Geographically speaking, emerging markets will continue to decline until 2018 and then growth will flatten out in the following two years, according to IDC. Although these markets are forecast to show growth in the detachable segment, the disproportionate decline in slate tablets ensures no growth until 2020. Meanwhile, mature markets will experience positive single-digit growth until 2020 as the decline in slate tablets is offset b the growth in detachable tablets.

“The transition to detachables is inevitable, but slate tablets will remain relevant as highlighted by recent results from Amazon wit its Kindle Fire portfolio,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director for Tablets at IDC, in a statement. “Fueled by ultra low-end prices and a growing ecosystem play involving the Internet of Things, slate tablets will still account for more than twice the volume of the detachable segment with 124 million units forecast to be shipped in 2020.”

According to IDC, small screens (7 inches to 9 inches) held a majority share of shipments in 2015 (59.9 percent), but are forecast to decline to 56.4 percent in 2016 and slip to 39.7 percent in 2020.

Medium screens (9 inches to less than 13 inches) comprised 39.8 percent of shipments in 2015, and are expected to grow to 43.1 percent in 2016 and take a majority position of 58.2 percent by 2020.

Large screens (13 inches to less than 16 inches) comprised 0.3 percent of shipments in 2015, and are expected to grow slightly to 0.5 percent in 2016 and 2.1 percent in 2020.

An interactive graphic showing worldwide shipments and year-over-year growth for the 2015-2020 forecast period is available on this site.

About the Author

Richard Chang is associate editor of THE Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • university building surrounded by icons for AI, checklists, and data governance

    Improving AI Governance for Stronger University Compliance and Innovation

    AI can generate valuable insights for higher education institutions and it can be used to enhance the teaching process itself. The caveat is that this can only be achieved when universities adopt a strategic and proactive set of data and process management policies for their use of AI.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • futuristic AI interface with glowing data streams and abstract neural network patterns

    OpenAI Launches Its Largest AI Model Yet in Research Preview

    OpenAI has announced the launch of GPT-4.5, its largest AI model to date, code-named Orion. The model, trained with more computing power and data than any previous OpenAI release, is available as a research preview to select users.

  • Microsoft

    Microsoft Introduces Its First Quantum Computing Chip

    Microsoft has unveiled Majorana 1, its first quantum computing chip, aimed at deployment in datacenters.