Worldwide tablet shipments will reach 211.3 million units in 2015, down -8.1% from 2014, according to a new IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker forecast. The new forecast follows three consecutive quarters of declining worldwide tablet shipments in 2015. Despite the challenges facing the overall market, IDC expects detachable tablets will continue to represent a growing portion of total shipments.
“We’re witnessing a real market transition as end users shift their demand towards detachables and more broadly towards a productivity-based value proposition,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, Research Director, Tablets, in a statement. “The proliferation of detachable offerings from hardware vendors continues to help drive this switch. We’re starting to see the impact of competition within this space as the major platform vendors – Apple, Google and Microsoft – now have physical product offerings. With attractive price points, including the introduction of sub-$100 detachables, and platform innovation being driven by competition, IDC is confident that the detachables segment will nearly double in size in the next year, recording more than 75% growth compared to 2015.”
“The transition to detachable tablets also ushers in two other key trends: the growth of Windows and a turnaround for Apple’s iPad device line,” said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, in a statement. “Though early reviews for the iPad Pro have been mixed, we believe the Pro to be the only reason for Apple to gain tablet market share in the coming years as they target select enterprise and prosumer audiences. At the same time we expect Windows-based devices – slates and detachables combined – to more than double its market share by 2019, driven by a combination of traditional PC OEMs as well as more household smartphone vendors.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, uh, regarding IDC’s soothsaying aptitude:
IDC: Windows Phone to surpass Apple’s iOS by 2015 – June 10, 2011
Worldwide Tablet Market Share, by Screen Size, 2014, 2015*, 2019*
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, December 1, 2015
*Forecast figures
Taxonomy Note: Total tablet market includes slate tablets plus 2-in-1 tablets. References to “tablets” by IDC include both slate tablets and 2-in-1 devices.
Source: International Data Corporation
MacDailyNews Take: IDC forecasts Apple’s iOS to have 25.7% worldwide tablet market share in 2019 versus Microsoft with 17.8%?
Whatever you’re having, IDC, send some over here. We’ve got a lot of paint to thin.
And, now for some badly needed perspective: A single quarter of iPad Pro sales will exceed the total of all Microsoft Surface tablets ever sold.
I think Microshaft is starting to get some traction in the tablet market. Apple needs to double down, continuity must work really well in order to hold off MS windows everywhere.
As MacDailyNews stated above:
And, now for some badly needed perspective: A single quarter of iPad Pro sales will exceed the total of all Microsoft Surface tablets ever sold.
IDC=It Doesn’t Compute. 🖖😀⌚️
MS is hammering the heck out of their tablets which may help some but advertising can only take you so far – you have to deliver on your promises.
I tried a Surface two days ago and the keyboard felt flimsy compared to the Apple iPad Pro keyboard. And people buy tablets for an appliance-like experience – they don’t want another Windows experience.
Although Microsoft is throwing a lot of money at this, they still are in Zune territory with the Surface.
I also tried out the new Surface Book too. The product actually was more solid than it appeared in photos but when equipped with the specs that I would desire, it will cost more than a 15″ MacBook Pro at only half the performance.
I’ll pass.
Surface is the Zune of tablets; M$ should have called it Zurface! 🖖😀⌚️
Hybrid devices with adaptable os is where its going to be.
Ical that ….
In other words, Surface-like Bloatware? Count me out.
I really don’t care for iOS much at all. It looks ugly, it hides functionality behind cryptic icons, and doesn’t allow the user to understand what is working, or how. Its only significant virtues over its copycat rival are security and its app store. Functionality is a big meh.
But OS X — that is the jewel in Apple’s crown that Cook forgot about and refuses to polish. If Apple continues to dumb down OS X or complicate it with more iOS/Windows/Google wannabe features (remember iOS brings Google Search, Facebook and Twitter integration, wtf!?!?). Shit like this decreases user efficiency and the Mac needs to offer raw perfomance and time savings. Sadly, Apple hasn’t improved the creaky file system underpinnings, and if other obvious improvements like hardware Touch ID and user serviceability are ignored, Apple will lose more and more professional customers. Most of the services and crap that Apple kludged onto OS X since Snow Leopard should have been offered at the application level, not in the OS. Most of the recent new Mac hardware has only lost functionality, not improved it.
So if you want the best of both worlds, got get your Surface and tell us how awesome it is. For anyone who appreciates optimized integration, you absolutely have to separate imprecise touchscreen media consumption devices from performance-optimized data-crunching monsters. They are totally different animals all the way down to the chipset architecture. May it remain that way forever.
Take everything IDC says with a grain of salt. They have tried to kick the iPad at every chance. The Surface is not a real mobile device, it’s just another laptop tablet that MS has not been able to sell for a decade. The iPad is a tool for people who the laptop doesn’t work well. If you need a good keyboard and only work in wifi areas than you need a real laptop. If your job requires you to be mobile and don’t need to do a lot of typing than a tablet is a great tool. People who think a tablet needs a “real OS” wrong. If a tablet does not have the option of cell and GPS than what new jobs can they do? What new markets can they take the computer revolution too?
IDC seems to have a focus on putting down Apple at every chance. They come up wrong time and time again but they never retract or correct their estimates for the next time. I wonder who pays them for this stuff?
This is the same IDC that predicted Windows Phone would be the number 2 mobile platform behind Android by 2016.