Subscribe

Tablets face pressure from big-screen phones

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 11 Jan 2016
Phablets have and will continue to impact sales of smaller screen size tablets, says IDC.
Phablets have and will continue to impact sales of smaller screen size tablets, says IDC.

Seven-inch tablet computers are witnessing a shrinking percentage in global shipments due to competition from emerging big-screen phones or phablets.

This is according to market analyst firm IDC, which points out that in 2014, seven-inch tablets - such as the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, Google Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX 7, and the LG G Pad V410 7-Inch 4G LTE, among others - dominated the tablet market with a 64.1% share of global tablet shipments. However, the firm notes the ratio fell to 57.7% last year.

Jean Philippe Bouchard, tablets research director at IDC, says during this year's Consumer Electronics Show, almost none of the big tablet brand names announced new seven- or eight-inch tablet development plans.

IDC believes that with the emergence of big 5.5-inch-plus screen phones, such as iPhone 6 and 6S, the Samsung Galaxy S6 models and the recently released Huawei Mate 8, consumers may ditch the seven-inch tablet computers in favour of larger-screen smartphones.

As a result, most of the major tablet vendors have slowed their pace in the development of seven-inch or larger tablets, the firm says.

The IDC predicts sales of small tablets in global shipments will fall to 43% this year.

"Phablets have and will continue to impact sales of smaller screen size tablets," says Bouchard.

"The value proposition of a seven-inch slate tablet is considerably reduced when end-users also carry a large smartphone."

Share