Neil Hughes
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 — Â 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.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
9 Comments
Plotting lines to infinity isn't that difficult to do, but do they mean anything. 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.
Although there is clearly room for enterprise growth in tablets, I've never trusted Forrester's useless predictions before and I am not about to start now.
[quote name="sog35" url="/t/187192/led-by-enterprise-sales-global-tablet-use-predicted-to-approach-800m-by-2018#post_2747442"]Apple/IBM knew this years ago. [/quote] 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.
[quote name="anantksundaram" url="/t/187192/led-by-enterprise-sales-global-tablet-use-predicted-to-approach-800m-by-2018#post_2747457"]Although there is clearly room for enterprise growth in tablets, I've never trusted Forrester's useless predictions before and I am not about to start now.[/quote] 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....
[quote name="knowitall" url="/t/187192/led-by-enterprise-sales-global-tablet-use-predicted-to-approach-800m-by-2018#post_2747452"]Plotting lines to infinity isn't that difficult to do, but do they mean anything.[/quote] 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.