Although the short term outlook looks weak, with expected year on year growth of -11.5% in volume terms this year, to just 183.4 million units, IDC is optimistic that positive growth will return in 2018 and that shipments will reach 194.2 million in 2020. However, this growth will partly come from sales lost by traditional PCs to convertible tablets. Windows and iOS-based products are already available in that category and IDC believes that the latest version of Android will allow that operating system to also take some share. This year ‘slates’ will represent 85% of all tablets, but this will drop to 60% by 2020.
IDC expects emerging markets to be the key opportunity for convertibles, as buyers in those regions are very keen on low cost computing devices.
The good news for display makers is that the average size will go up because of the increased share of detachables, with the share at 9″ or smaller around 55% this year, while it will drop to 40% by 2020.
The popularity of convertibles will lead to a boost in market share for Windows as a tablet OS.
