The fact that tablets are here to dominate is crystal clear by now, with many analysts already predicting that the slates are going to eat more and more into the market share of traditional PCs.
If anything, the recent decline of sales figures of desktop and notebook computers is proof enough.
But there are some countries where tablets have overly taken over. Take the United Kingdom, for instance, where tablets now outsell the entire PC industry.
The latest numbers released by market research firm IDC provide us with a daunting new picture at what happened in the UK. Between January and March around 2.8 million tablets were shipped, which is way more than the 2.3 million PC units that moved in the country during the same time period.
And PC units in this particular case being desktops, notebooks, ultrabooks — including Apple computers.
This translates to a 188 percent year-on-year rise for the tablets enough to fend off traditional PC numbers put together. Sure the pricing of the tablets also comes into play here, with more affordable Android units retailing for almost half the price of most midrange PCs.
But then again, not all tablets are priced this way — slates from Microsoft and Apple come at a premium price, owing to their form and functionality.
And granted, this is just the UK for now, but it could be a startling indication of the future of personal computing if similar numbers are reported from other markets. It may not happen immediately, but this seems to be the general trend in almost all countries around the world.
All Comments
Tablet-P.C.’s are made to last only a few years, while there are still working desktops and notebooks/laptops with Windows XP on them, not to mention all the schools that use Windows 95 (they exist, and are a lot more common than you think), people should stop comparing Apples with Oranges.