14 DAY TRIAL // Even though one analyst firm found that the tablet market grew by 75% over the course of the fourth quarter of 2012, another believes that the segment is nearing saturation.
Market watcher Transparency Market Research thinks the increase will be of only 13.1% between 2012 and 2018.
To be fair, though, the study published here isn't one that takes into account all possible business outlets and shipment regions.
Transparency only looked at the United States of America and how many of their citizens would buy slates over the next five years.
The iPad, from Apple, will, predictably enough, be in the lead. At the rate things are going, it may just stay there forever.
Android-based slates as a whole will overtake the iPad though, at some point in 2017, or so the firm thinks.
On a somewhat less bright note, large-screen slates are losing their popularity, or at least have passed the initial period when they were new and exciting.
Granted, there are still plenty of people buying them as primary computing and entertainment devices, and the growth rate of acquisition for mobile workers will be of 18.1% from 2012 to 2018.
Nevertheless, 8-inch and small slates are becoming more popular at the expense of 10.1-inch and larger ones, suggesting a market maturation that is usually accompanied by a tempering of the relationship between supply and demand.
There might be a sharp contrast between 2012, when 9.6-inch to 11-inch tablets were most popular (25 million), and 2014 or 2015, by which time smaller slates will come into their own.
Those who want to see the Transparency Market Research study in-depth can go and get it by following the link we included above.
To get a broader picture of the IT market and what everyone is showing interest in, maybe even guess what this year will bring, see any of the stories here.