A billion tablets and counting

THE number of tabletcomputer owners will edge past a billion this year, having doubled in only three years.

But that astonishing rate of growth will not continue, even though the market will keep expanding.

Estimates by eMarketer suggest that 15% of the world’s population will be using the devices by the end of this year.

But that growth would slow dramatically in coming years, said the company.

The number of tablet users was expected to rise 17.1% this year, which is healthy, but still pales in comparison with the yearon-year gains of 54.1% in 2013 and 29.1% last year.

By 2018, the growth rate for new users would be only 7.9%, and the number of tablet users in the world would reach 1.43 billion.

A key factor in this slowing growth was that the current number of users was skewed by the abundance of the devices in developed markets.

As those markets mature, growth in emerging markets is not expected to take up much of the slack.

This is because tablets are still seen as luxury items in terms of price.

Sales also face competition from a range of devices such as smartphones, phablets, wearables, connected TVs and dedicated gaming devices.

“The shared nature of tablets and increased competition from other connected devices reduce the likelihood that the tablet audience will match the size of the smartphone audience worldwide,” said Cathy Boyle, senior analyst at eMarketer.

China would be the world leader in terms of tablet users in 2015, with more than 328 million people accessing the devices at least once a month.— ©