After watching the trends for the last several fiscal quarters, Canalys has predicted that tablets are set to rise in sales to 50% of the PC market in 2014. In addition, they say that Android will be making up 32% of mobile operating systems by the end of that year.
Tablets have been growing in popularity as their applications grow, the greater synchronization with various PC services making them a valid replacement for PC’s. Companies have even been making laptop/tablet hybrids, which account for the growing trend. On the other side, phones have been integrating with tablets to create phablets.
Already, the devices have made up a full 40% of the PC shipments in Q3 of 2013. This explains why the number of PC and laptop sales are declining rapidly, but the market itself has been growing exponentially. Tablets are the cause, and will continue to be the driving force behind sales in the future.
Despite this, Apple, manufacturer of the insanely popular iPad, has been seeing declining interest despite the Air. Mainly due to their continued focus on other products, such as the iPhone line.
However, Apple is one of the few companies making money from the tablet boom. Premium products attract high value consumers; for Apple, remaining highly profitable and driving revenue from its entire ecosystem is of greater importance than market share statistics.
