Gartner Predicts Slowing Tablet Sales In 2015

Sales of tablets will increase in 2015, but in general it will slow down, according to a report from Gartner.

In 2015, an estimated 233 million new tablets will be sold, the American IT research firm claims. That number equates to an eight per cent increase in comparison with 2014.

However, that also means that the tablet sales are slowing down, and it’s happening because consumers have chosen to keep their old tablets for longer than expected.

They are also handing them down to other members of their family, as they are buying new ones.

Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said: “The lifetime of tablets is being extended – they are shared out among family members, and software upgrades, especially for iOS devices, keep the tablets current. Another factor includes the lack of innovation in hardware, which refrains consumers from upgrading”.

When it comes to the combined shipment of all devices (PCs, tablets, mobile phones and smartphones), Gartner expects an increase of 3.9 per cent compared to 2014, which amounts to a total of 2.5 billion units sold.

Multiple new devices are expected at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which starts officially tomorrow.

“We also expect development in cognisant computing to help the vendors’ relationships with consumers evolve from passive providers of hardware to in-sync with the user,” Atwal added.

Even though many have predicted the fall of the PC and the laptop and the rise of the tablet, exactly the opposite happened, with the sales of PCs and laptops increasing over the past year whilst tablet sales are in a constant slowdown.