Tablet market slows down
According to market research firm Gartner’s forecast, the PC market will bounce back after several weak years. It should manage a 1 % turnover growth in 2015, which will rise to a 3.7 % turnover growth next year. The growth comes entirely on the back of “premium ultramobile computers” (like Apple‘s MacBook Air), as sales of the traditional personal computer are still dwindling.
The renaissance coincides with a weaker tablet market: the latter had grown more than 10 % on a yearly basis for the past few years, but its growth was stunted last year as their lifespan increased and actual technological advances were nowhere to be found. That has eliminated the customers’s need to buy a new tablet, which is why Gartner believes tablet sales will ‘only’ grow 8 % this year, up to 233 million.
Android remains all-powerful
The smartphone market should experience a 3.7 % growth this year, as Gartner expects the continued polarization between expensive luxury items and cheap entry models to widen even further.
Looking at operating systems, Android continues to reign supreme: it surpassed the ‘billion devices’ milestone last year and Gartner believes it will grow another 26 % to nearly 1.5 billion devices. The fight for the number 2 spot however is wide open according to the research firm: “From 2015, we expect Windows to grow faster than iOS, as the PC market stabilizes and the challenge for the next iPhone to find significant growth becomes greater, narrowing the gap between the two operating systems”, research director Ranjit Atwal said.
