LONDON: Global tablet shipments are expected to fall 8.1% in 2015 from a year ago, as a shift to detachable tablets hasn’t yet been enough to offset a decline in the overall market, according to data tracker International Data Corp.
Tablet shipments will reach 211.3 million units in 2015, IDC said Tuesday, but have declined in three consecutive quarters this year. Tablet sales have been hurt, in part, by the growing size and sophistication of smartphones.
Despite the decline, IDC said the market was transitioning to detachable tablets, which come with optional keyboards. The detachable segment was seen growing 75% in 2015 and nearly doubling in size in 2016, IDC said.
”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,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, the research director of IDC’s tablets division.
The transition to detachables will help stoke two other trends, IDC said, including the growth of the Windows operating system and a turnaround for Apple’s iPad line.
”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,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst of IDC’s world-wide mobile device trackers. “At the same time we expect Windows-based devices—slates and detachables combined—to more than double its market share by 2019.”
The iPad Pro was unveiled in September and included a keyboard cover, a processor that Apple says is more powerful than 80% of notebook computers shipped in the past year, and an ultra high-resolution screen with the same dimensions as a notebook computer.
