Many Consumers Finding Tablets Meet Their Computing Needs as Notebook Sales Decline
Tablet shipments are forecast to grow 58 percent this year to 229.3 million units, passing notebook PC shipments, which are declining the second straight year, according to IDC. Notebook PC sales are expected to fall from 200.9 million units in 2012 to 187.4 million worldwide this year, IDC said. By 2015, IDC predicts tablet shipments will outpace notebooks and desktops combined. “What started as a sign of tough economic times has quickly shifted to a change in the global computing paradigm with mobile being the primary benefactor,” said Ryan Reith, program manager at IDC. Tablets surpassing notebook PCs this year “marks a significant change” in consumer attitudes about computing and “the applications and ecosystems that power them,” Reith said. PCs will still play an “important role” going forward, primarily among business users, but for many consumers a tablet is a “simple and elegant solution” for use cases previously delivered by a PC, he said.
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Low-cost Android devices are fueling current growth in tablet sales, with average selling price (ASP) of tablets expected to fall 11 percent to $381 worldwide this year, IDC said. The ASP of a PC, meanwhile, is tagged at $635, it said. IDC predicts tablet prices will drop further, enabling manufacturers to deliver a “viable computing experience” for a larger customer base at price points the PC industry “has strived to meet for years,” it said. IDC credits Apple’s success in the education market with driving tablets’ usage beyond simple content consumption and gaming. Calling tablets “learning devices,” Jitesh Ubrani, IDC analyst, said the dream of having a PC for every child is now being replaced with “the reality that we can actually provide a tablet for every child.”
While Apple set a size standard for tablets with the first-generation iPad’s 9.7-inch display, 7-inch devices are increasingly gaining traction in both the Android and iOS markets, IDC said. Within the last two quarters, the sub-8-inch category has overtaken the larger-sized segment in shipments, IDC said.
Device manufacturers are responding to changing trends with faster performance and increased memory and storage as tablets encroach on notebooks in performance, according to product managers in Samsung Semiconductor’s Memory Products group. The tablet is “the new personal computer,” Kathy Choe Thomas, senior product manager-NAND flash products at Samsung Semiconductor, told us. The need for faster performance in boot time, application loading, downloads, data transfer and gaming -- along with low-power requirements for longer battery life -- will all drive advances in flash storage products, Thomas said. Samsung is promoting Universal Flash Storage (UFS) as the next-generation mobile storage standard to replace aging eMMC mass storage devices due to UFS'S ability to handle the high-performance and low power consumption required for increasingly powerful mobile devices, she said. Thomas cited maximum bandwidth ratings for eMMC 5.0 of 400 Mbps in 2012, and she said UFS 2.0 will deliver maximum bandwidth of 1,200 Mbps by 2014, while reducing power requirements by half.
On the memory side, tablets will account for an increasing share of the DRAM market, said Stephen Lum, product marketing manager for Samsung’s mobile memory products. Smartphones and tablets will account for 33 percent of DRAM production this year industrywide, while PCs’ share of DRAM falls to 37 percent from 62 percent in 2010, he said. Tablet features including video chat, video editing, high resolution cameras, augmented reality and mirroring of TV viewing will all add to the need for increased mobile DRAM density, Lum said. Current 2-GB DRAM requirements will grow to 3 GB to handle the more data-intensive applications, he said.