Analyst agency predicts less hard growth in tablet market

Analyst agency IDC predicts less growth in the tablet market this year. The number of tablets sold is expected to increase by 19.4 percent, significantly less than the 51.6 percent growth rate recorded last year.

According to IDC analysts, around 260 million tablets are expected to be sold in 2014, which would be nearly 20 percent more than last year. According to the analysts, the flattening in growth is due to the fact that manufacturers are less likely to release new hardware and that there is already a large number of tablet users who do not quickly upgrade their existing model. In 2013, tablet sales increased by 51.6 percent, compared to a year earlier.

The IDC also states that the average selling price per tablet has fallen in the past two years: by 18.3 percent in 2012 and by 14.6 percent in 2013. The IDC does not expect the average to fall much further. For 2014, a decrease of 3.6 percent is expected for the average selling price. Consumers would now be less interested in budget tablets, according to the analysts.

A leveling off in growth in the tablet market seems plausible after years of strong growth. However, analyst predictions are often inaccurate; while spotting short-term trends is relatively easy, predicting exact numbers or interpreting longer-term trends is much more difficult; For example, IDC predicted in 2010, six months before Android would become the market leader, that most smartphones would run on Symbian by 2014.