South Africa’s tablet market will see a 13.5 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to 2018, with tablet demand in the country taking over the notebook and desktop markets, according to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) research.
According to the IDC, tablet shipments to South Africa will expand 13.5 per cent each year between 2014 and 2018 to total 3.1 million units by 2018, fuelled by the falling cost of tablet devices and the country’s growing middle class.
“A substantial amount of households now own more than one tablet, and this trend is expected to increase right through to 2018. And with schools actively encouraging students to bring their own devices into the classroom for educational purposes, IDC believes education will play a key role in driving even further growth in the market over the coming years,” the research analysts said.
The boom in tablet demand will impact negatively on the traditional notebook market, the IDC said, predicting notebook shipments to decline at a negative CAGR of 1.8 per cent to a total of 1.5 million units in 2018.
The IDC said while the increasing preference for tablets will be the main impacting factor on notebook sales, changing consumer habits such as retaining the same device for longer periods of time will also affect demand for notebooks.
Dynamic hybrid devices will be the future of the notebook market, the researchers said, but the success of the market will depend on prices being cut.
“End users are instead opting for more dynamic devices such as tablets, ultraslim notebooks, and convertible notebooks,” the IDC said.
“IDC believes that shipments of convertible notebooks will grow throughout the forecast period, and therefore provide some much-needed respite for the ailing notebook market. However, this anticipated growth is strongly dependent on prices being cut, as convertible notebooks are currently too expensive for the majority of the population. The hybrid design of these devices resonates well with end users since they can be used both as tablets and as notebooks.”
According to the IDC, the desktop market will suffer the biggest decline over the next four years, dropping at a CAGR of 18.1 per cent, to ship only 171,000 units by 2018.
“This contraction can be attributed to outdated designs and the lack of touch technology, which has taken the computing world by storm in recent years,” the firm said.
However, all-in-one desktops which integrate the monitor and computing components in one device will see growth of 36.3 per cent to reach 176,000 units shipped in 2018, attributable mainly to design, price and inclusion of touch technology.
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