No holiday miracles for tablet makers this year. Tablet shipments
will continue their decline for 2015, according to International Data
Corporation's (IDC) latest forecast.
For 2015, that tablet vendors will have shipped 211.3 million units,
an 8.1 percent drop from 2014 figures, IDC announced today. Last year, tablet shipments totaled 229.6 million units.
While the popularity of tablets is waning, one form factor increasingly is gaining market acceptance.
Seeking the versatility of both touch and keyboard input, buyers are
driving demand for two-in-ones, according to IDC research director, Jean
Philippe Bouchard. "We're witnessing a real market transition as end
users shift their demand towards detachables and more broadly towards a
productivity-based value proposition," he said in prepared remarks. "The
proliferation of detachable offerings from hardware vendors continues
to help drive this switch."
Backed by the major OS makers and device manufacturers, two-in-ones
are cementing their place in the tablet market. Tumbling prices also
help.
"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," Bouchard observed. "With attractive price
points, including the introduction of sub-$100 detachables, and platform
innovation being driven by competition, IDC is confident that the
detachables segment will nearly double in size in the next year,
recording more than 75 percent growth compared to 2015.
Tablets based on Microsoft's Windows OS will make big gains
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