‘Ultramobile Premiums’ may fare better.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BANGALORE: Even as the tech arena is mentally preparing for the big launch of the next series of high-end tablets from tech giants Apple and Google, a new report of Gartner says that the sales of tablet is plummeting globally.
Gartner’s report might well leave Apple and Google red faced as their devices have already taken shape in the inventory, ready to hit stores.
According to the report, the sales of tablets will only witness a minuscule growth of 11% in 2014 when compared to the previous year’s growth of 55%. This new stat rings an alarm bell for manufacturers, who hoped to perform better in their tablet sale than in the previous years.
When converted into numbers, the sales of Tablet for 2014 will only touch 229 million, which is a growth of just 9.5% of the overall device sales. The report says the tablet sales will not crash beyond the negative line anytime soon but the fall in the market share of the device will continue over the years.
Neither does the report give a reason to smile for desktop and notebook manufacturers as their statistics will continue to dig low with numbers coming down to 276 million units in 2014 from 296 million in 2013. Gartner sees good fortunes for the not-tablet not-laptop models, which otherwise is called the ‘Ultramobile Premiums’, giving fresh hope for the PC manufacturers.
Like always, the smartphone sales has no signs of falling back. The report sums up that an estimated 1.2 billion Android smartphones will be on sale in 2014, catching hold of 51% of the total smartphone sales during the year.
Sources say that Google will be launching its new Nexus 6 or Nexus X smartphone and Nexus 9 tablet today, on Wednesday. A few days back, Apple had announced that it’s hosting an event on October 16, expected to be the launch of the new Apple tablet.