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Is the Tablet Market In Outright Collapse? Data Suggests Yes

Posted by timothy on from the then-give-me-a-cheap-nexus-9 dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes Is the tablet market rapidly collapsing? Mobile-analytics firm Flurry doesn't come to quite that stark a conclusion, but things aren't looking too good for touch-screens that don't qualify as "phablets." According to Flurry's numbers, full-sized tablets accounted for only 11 percent of new devices in 2014, a decline from 2013, when that form-factor totaled 17 percent of the new-device market; small tablets experienced a smaller decline, falling from 12 percent to 11 percent of new devices between 2013 and 2014. (Meanwhile, phablets expanded from 4 percent of new devices in 2013 to 13 percent this year.) Boy Genius Report, for its part, looked at those numbers and decided that the tablet market is doomed: "Consumers happy with compact smartphones are not switching to larger iPhones for now, but former tablet buyers are." That's not to say people will stop using tablets, but the onetime theory that they would one day cannibalize all PCs looks increasingly nebulous.

6 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Tablet? by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, you mean my personal Netflix gadget.

    I use it (google nexus 7) because the battery lasts a long time, it is portable, and it is specifically NOT my phone.

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    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    1. Re:Tablet? by sycodon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also, tablets have a longer lifespan than your average smartphone. The tablet market could probably be called Mature now. Explosive growth is over, at least in the original Western Markets. You are looking at incremental growth and replacements.

      Mobil phones, on the other hand, are still P.O.S. devices that start breaking within a year or are obsoleted by he never ending OS updates, carrier technology, etc.

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      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re:Tablet? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why would anyone care if stupid people laugh at them?

      Because those stupid people in a hospital are nurses and doctors. Give them an opportunity to look down on you as an I.T. professional and you will never hear the end of it. As an I.T. contractor, I worked in a wide variety of companies with different cultures. A hospital is perhaps the most hostile work enviornment. Either you fall in line with the pecking order or the door hits your ass on the way out.

  2. Not replacing PCs after all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So will the UI makers retreat on their strategy of forcing PCs to use touch-inspired interfaces? We can only hope.

  3. Market Saturation? by tysonedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Couldn't it also be that Tablets are a question of reaching market saturation, and that they fall more into the PC life cycle rather than the Cell Phone life cycle of being replaced yearly? From my personal experience, everywhere I go, I see people with tablets that are a year or two old because they are "good enough", lack compelling reasons to upgrade and also are typically appear significantly more expensive than their cell phone counterparts as they are typically sold unsubsidized.

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    Thirty four characters live here.
  4. Ugh by tom229 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    These marketing types are all chicken little's. Any engineer/technician could have told you this was going to happen. Tablets are not the new laptops. They are consumption devices used for a specific purpose. Everyone who wanted a tablet, now has one, so expect sales to slow. Expect content creators to keep buying laptops and desktops. And expect anyone with half a brain to keep rejecting touch unified interfaces, the "cloud", and software as a service.

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    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.