A Canalys report has revealed that these devices will make up a full half of all computers in 2014.
According to the research firm, Canalys, tablet commerce will soon have the potential to reach quite an explosive point, as these devices work their way toward dominance in the computing environment, worldwide.
They have predicted that these smaller screen devices will make up half of the entire market.
In fact, Canalys has said that tablet commerce will expand to the point that these devices will out ship nearly all other forms of personal computers combined. This will mean that they will make up almost half of the total consumer personal computer marketplace, which includes tablets, notebooks, laptops, and computers.
Already, this year, the computing marketplace growth is greatly driven by tablet commerce.
In the third quarter of this year, the worldwide client PC market increased by an estimated 18 percent. Even as desktop, notebook, and laptop shipments were starting to decline, the adoption of tablets allowed that market to continue its expansion. In fact, in that quarter, those shipments were already making up about 40 percent of all PCs. This was under half a million units behind the worldwide shipments of notebooks and laptops.
Canalys’s tablet commerce forecasts for 2014 are that 285 million units will be shipped. It has also predicted that this figure will increase by the year 2017 until it reaches 396 million. The leaders are predicted to be Samsung and Apple, which will maintain their dominance over the medium future, but as competition continues to grow in this market space, they are both expected to experience considerable challenges.
Apple has been able to keep its own top spot throughout this year, so far. The last quarter is expected to strengthen that manufacturer’s position because of the recent introduction of the newest iPad Air and the iPad Minis. However, Canalys also stated, through Tim Coulling, a Senior Analyst, that “Apple’s decline in PC market share is unavoidable when considering its business model. Samsung narrowly took the lead in EMEA this quarter and Apple will lose its position to competitors in more markets in the future.”
Coulling also pointed out that Apple is among a small number of companies that are actually making money from tablet commerce device sales, so far.
Forrester Research has just released a study that suggests that it is tablet commerce that is paving the way to the future and that these devices may replace smartphones when it comes to searching for products and actually purchasing them. Their data showed that 30 percent of American tablet owners use those devices for shopping purposes.