International Data Corporation today scaled back its forecasts for the next half-decade’s worth of tablet sales, looking toward mere 2% year-over-year increase. The lion’s share of the 234.5 million units it expects to be shipped in 2019—or more than 158 million—will be Android-powered models.
“Despite the growing popularity of phablets, there still remains a portion of the market that wants to use a larger device so they can tailor their experience to the appropriate screen size,” said Jitesh Ubrani, an IDC senior research analyst. “Meanwhile, an increasing number of vendors behind small tablets are reducing prices and adopting features like voice calling to entice consumers to purchase their products over competing phablets, making the dynamics of phablets vs voice-capable tablets an interesting one to watch.”
Androids will command two thirds of the market through 2019, the company predicts, though their share will decline from the current 67 to 63% over the five years. Picking up the slack will be Windows-based machines; Apple’s iOS-based iPads will lose share. (See below.)
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker
“Microsoft is doing a lot of good things right now and we believe the launch of Windows 10 later this year will not only have a significant impact on Microsoft’s share of the market, but on the industry as a whole,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, tablets research director at IDC. “There is an appetite for a platform that can provide a productivity experience that remains consistent across multiple form factors and device types, and we believe Microsoft is well-positioned to capture some of that demand.”
