14 DAY TRIAL // Will the domination of tablets come to an end? Recent information posted by research firm IDC claims that phablets will begin to swallow up tablet marketshare in the upcoming 12 to 18 months.
Phablets have been pushed forward by a lot of tech manufacturers lately. They basically represent smartphones with larger screens (5 to 8-inches).
We've seen Samsung roll out the Samsung Galaxy Note series, Sony with its Xperia Z Ultra, while HTC and Nokia are working on new prototypes.
Firstpost reports that IDC expects phablets to overlap with smaller-size tablets (7 to 8-inch).
Bob O'Donnell, the firm's vice president, claims that “the device world has seen several iterations of cannibalization impacting different categories, with the last few years focused on tablets cannibalizing PC sales.”
But this year the trend has shifted, and they believe that “the larger smartphones, commonly called phablets, will start to eat into the smaller-size tablet market, contributing to a slower growth for tablets.”
Slates that fall under the category expected to be cannibalized include the Google Nexus 7, Apple's iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 and LG's freshly squeezed G-Pad.
Not all news is bad for slates, however. The holiday season is coming up, so IDC expects Christmas shopping to push sales up to 84.1 million units in the Q4 of 2013.
This means that tablet sales will surpass PC sales, which are expected to land at 83.1 million.
On a global scale, tablet shipments are projected to reach 227.3 million by the end of the year. Compare this to the 113.4 units IDC assigned for PCs and you can see that the picture is not that bleak.
By 2017, things will really go downwards for the PC market, which is estimated to lose 13% of marketshare, while tablets will make up 16.5% of the global marketshare.