Worldwide Tablet Market Forecast to Decline More Than 8% in 2015; Switch to Detachable Tablets Accelerates – IDC

Worldwide tablet shipments will reach 211.3 million units in 2015, down -8.1 percent from 2014, according to a new International Data Corporation (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,” says Jean Philippe Bouchard , iDC Research Director, Tablets . “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,” says Jitesh Ubrani , Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. “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 their market share by 2019, driven by a combination of traditional PC OEMs as well as more household smartphone vendors.”

Taxonomy Note: Total tablet market includes slate tablets plus 2-in-1 tablets. References to “tablets” in this release include both slate tablets and 2-in-1 devices.

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Source: IDC