Faced with growing competition from larger smartphones and the prospect of new categories such as wearable devices diverting consumer spending, International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker modestly lowered its tablet forecast for 2013 and beyond. The company now expects worldwide tablet shipments to reach 227.4 million units in 2013, down from a previous forecast of 229.3 million but still 57.7% above 2012 shipments. Despite the slight reduction for this year, the market will continue to grow at a rapid pace and by 2017 IDC expects worldwide shipments to be nearly 407 million units. The company also adjusted its regional outlook, with maturing markets such as the U.S. now expected to cede share more rapidly to emerging markets such as Asia/Pacific.
“A lower than anticipated second quarter, hampered by a lack of major product announcements, means the second half of the year now becomes even more critical for a tablet market that has traditionally seen its highest shipment volume occur during the holiday season,” said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets, in a statement. “We expect average selling prices to continue to compress as more mainstream vendors utilize low-cost components to better compete with the whitebox tablet vendors that continue to enjoy widespread traction in the market despite typically offering lower-quality products and poorer customer experiences.”
While mature markets such as North America and Western Europe have driven much of the tablet market’s growth to date, IDC expects shipment growth to begin to slow in these markets. Market saturation, increased adoption of smartphones with 5-inch and greater screens, and the eventual growth of the wearable category will impact tablet growth in all regions, but are likely to impact mature regions first. As a result, IDC now expects the mature market (comprised of North America, Western Europe, and Japan) to shrink from 60.8% of the worldwide market in 2012 to 49% by 2017. As a result, emerging markets (comprised broadly of Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) will grow from 39.2% in 2012 to 51% in 2017.
“Year-on-year growth is beginning to slow as the tablet market approaches early stages of maturity,” said Jitesh Ubrani, Research Analyst for the Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, in a statement. “Much of the long-term growth will be driven by countries like China where projected growth rates will be consistently higher than the worldwide average.”
A secondary trend in the tablet market is the rise of tablets in the commercial segment. Education projects and adoption in vertical markets such as retail are contributing factors as this segment is set to slowly double from the 10% share it held in 2012 to 20% by 2017.
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, August 2013
Google Glass and the pundit-invented iWatch are not going to do anything to tablets.
Complement but certainly not replace.
@GM – “Complement but certainly not replace .”
I agree. And the appearance of a complementary good (iWatch) will cause demand for iPads to INCREASE, not decrease.
It must be true because it has charts!
Clueless Idiots!
WOW, such accurate predictions about how a non-existant product will affect an existing product. How do these guys see the future so well….. and why aren’t they billionaires since they can clearly see the winning lotto numbers and all.
Just a thought on a three day weekend friday. 🙂
Gosh, they reduced their estimate by a bit less than 2 million tablets this year. Out of 227 million. That is 0.7% down. Some fancy predictions there. I was thinking more like down 2.0045 million but then again I am not too sure it couldn’t be 2.0049. Just have to recheck my figures.
That’s a bit silly. If you are in the market for a tablet, an iWatch will not suffice. Large smartphones will only affect Android tablet sales, because Apple users wouldn’t mix and match (although I did see a woman with an iPad mini and a Samsung Galaxy III, which I can only assume was the free one from the BOGO offer).
I love that they can wildly guess,.. err ahem, I mean, forecast into 2017. Does anyone ever hold them to their crazy predictions?! Wish I cared enough to but it’ll be loooooong forgotten by me and everyone else.
Quite possibly the most asinine thing I’ve read in the last five years.
Dang… Wish I had read this sooner… Maybe then I wouldn’t have purchased an iMac this April because I purchased a MacBook Air in years prior! Maybe I’ll nix my iPhone purchase this September because of my prior iPad purchase in 2010! Or is it nix my iPhone purchase because an iWatch may be released! Or is it, forget the iWatch as Apple TV will become more than just a hobby? I’m so confused!… Or, maybe, just maybe, if I have the money, I can purchase them all… Now there’s an idea!
They say Apple is done if it doesn’t create a new category of products every five minutes. I’m waiting for the iTooth, the iToe, the iEye (or the nautical equivalent, the ayeAye.) Then there is the iEar, iNose and iThroat. No iHeart though. NYC has the patent.
IDC is clueless. For years, they have under-reported Mac sales growth to make it appear that Windows is even larger. They refused to count iPads with overall PC sales to suppress and hide its impact on the PC market. (Horace Deideu, on the other hand, did not, and was the first to reveal the significant erosion the iPad and other tablets have made.)
Now this. So I am left to conclude that sales of wearable devices will now count against PC sales, and thus show that Google, Samsung (and for extra credit, because they are so beholden to subscription money from Microsoft, their chief benefactor) Macs and iPads are falling hopelessly behind. Or something like that.
Yeah, right.
If you had any idea what it costs corporate clients to subscribe to IDC to get their drivel, you would run screaming. Either way, you should. That their words are taken verbatim terrifies me.
Oh ya… Lol… Quite a few people will buy a watch with a two inch screen as a substitute for a tablet..
Abserd and ridiculouse!