Led by enterprise sales, global tablet use predicted to approach 800M by 2018
Though annual tablet sales have largely plateaued and aren't expected to see reignited growth in the near future, devices like Apple's iPad will continue to grow in use in corporate environments, Forrester Research believes.
The research firm's latest predictions were revealed as part of its "Global Tablet Forecast 2015" report issued on Monday, a copy of which was provided to AppleInsider. It acknowledged that the overall tablet market has hit a plateau as Apple's iPad has struggled to grow in year over year sales, but noted that business sales are a "booming" bright spot.
"While the consumer market sees vacillation, the percentage of tablets the business is purchasing and managing directly continues to increase steadily," wrote analyst J.P. Gownder.
Looking forward, Forrester believes total global tablet sales will reach nearly 218 million units this year. Future growth is expected to be moderate --?by 2018, Forrester believes annual sales will reach about 250 million.
But while year over year sales aren't expected to spike, Forrester does see the global tablet installed base growing steadily. The firm's estimates call for an installed base of about 580 million units by the end of this year, growing to nearly 782 million by 2018.
Forrester believes the growth in tablets going forward will be largely driven by business-bought devices. While it pegs current business-owned tablets at about 14 percent of the overall global installed base, that's expected to grow to 20 percent of all tablets by 2018.
As enterprise adoption continues to grow, Forrester sees Apple positioned extremely well, especially with its partnership with IBM. Under the MobileFirst banner, IBM is responsible for hardware leasing, device management, security, analytics, mobile integration, and on-site service with iOS devices, while Apple is involved with software development and customer troubleshooting via AppleCare.
"Apple's ecosystem for iPads at work will only continue to get stronger, making iPad a sound choice for company-owned devices," Forrester wrote.
The research firm's latest predictions were revealed as part of its "Global Tablet Forecast 2015" report issued on Monday, a copy of which was provided to AppleInsider. It acknowledged that the overall tablet market has hit a plateau as Apple's iPad has struggled to grow in year over year sales, but noted that business sales are a "booming" bright spot.
"While the consumer market sees vacillation, the percentage of tablets the business is purchasing and managing directly continues to increase steadily," wrote analyst J.P. Gownder.
Looking forward, Forrester believes total global tablet sales will reach nearly 218 million units this year. Future growth is expected to be moderate --?by 2018, Forrester believes annual sales will reach about 250 million.
But while year over year sales aren't expected to spike, Forrester does see the global tablet installed base growing steadily. The firm's estimates call for an installed base of about 580 million units by the end of this year, growing to nearly 782 million by 2018.
Forrester believes the growth in tablets going forward will be largely driven by business-bought devices. While it pegs current business-owned tablets at about 14 percent of the overall global installed base, that's expected to grow to 20 percent of all tablets by 2018.
As enterprise adoption continues to grow, Forrester sees Apple positioned extremely well, especially with its partnership with IBM. Under the MobileFirst banner, IBM is responsible for hardware leasing, device management, security, analytics, mobile integration, and on-site service with iOS devices, while Apple is involved with software development and customer troubleshooting via AppleCare.
"Apple's ecosystem for iPads at work will only continue to get stronger, making iPad a sound choice for company-owned devices," Forrester wrote.
Comments
Wasn't it this firm that predicted that windows phone would be the dominant factor now (just by extrapolating the huge growth seen in a particular moment).
Anyway, this is just silly, it's clear that the tablet is a natural endpoint of computer evolution, so the near future will show only tablets and everyone will have one.
Years? If seems like only a year ago that Apple and IBM started making goo-goo eyes at each other.... I guess time just flies when you are in a relationship.
Oh, come on now. Loosen up. Forrester's not saying the annual sales are gonna do anything more then gently rise as the IBM/Apple partnership gains some traction... no wild prediction of sales with spikes, just a nice gentle slope. Don't be an old grumpy Gus... you can do it... Join me in a couple verses of Kumbayah....
Actually a little over half the graph is past data... and the projection of sales increases are very moderate... look again and see if you don't agree.
It's obvious by now Wall Street has no interest in slow and steady growth. It always wants to see explosive growth. 10% to 15% growth per year is seen as laughable and not worth investing in. Therein lies Apple's subpar valuation. It's practically a given Apple can't grow 40% every year, so big hedge fund investors aren't interested. Those funds know they can take a Netflix with a $30 billion market cap and double it without much effort. It's a trick I don't fully understand because they seem to keep expanding the P/E ratio with only tiny jumps of revenue required by simply getting analysts to keep saying the company has a potentially great future. When I see earnings can't keep up, I naturally suspect something is wrong to automatically assume earnings eventually will catch up. Maybe my thinking is too simplistic but I always expect to see a P/E to stay within some practical range. Am I really wrong in thinking that?
Wall Street has quickly killed off Apple's iPad as being a worthwhile product simply because it has a long lifespan and it doesn't need to be constantly upgraded. I do think the tablet market must be saturated and it's possible consumers prefer laptops to tablets if given a choice. I had thought tablets (the iPad) would have seen explosive growth in education but I guess I was terribly wrong in thinking that. Educational tablet sales have gone nowhere.
It's obvious by now Wall Street has no interest in slow and steady growth. It always wants to see explosive growth. 10% to 15% growth per year is seen as laughable and not worth investing in. Therein lies Apple's subpar valuation. It's practically a given Apple can't grow 40% every year, so big hedge fund investors aren't interested. Those funds know they can take a Netflix with a $30 billion market cap and double it without much effort. It's a trick I don't fully understand because they seem to keep expanding the P/E ratio with only tiny jumps of revenue required by simply getting analysts to keep saying the company has a potentially great future. When I see earnings can't keep up, I naturally suspect something is wrong to automatically assume earnings eventually will catch up. Maybe my thinking is too simplistic but I always expect to see a P/E to stay within some practical range. Am I really wrong in thinking that?
Wall Street has quickly killed off Apple's iPad as being a worthwhile product simply because it has a long lifespan and it doesn't need to be constantly upgraded. I do think the tablet market must be saturated and it's possible consumers prefer laptops to tablets if given a choice. I had thought tablets (the iPad) would have seen explosive growth in education but I guess I was terribly wrong in thinking that. Educational tablet sales have gone nowhere.
Don't you get tired of making the same damn rant in every thread?