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Topic: iPhone

NPD: Apple will lose quarter of tablet market by 2017

Summary: The tablet market is predicted to grow five times over by 2017, but Apple won't account for as much of it by then.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

The tablet PC market is expected to grow five times over in the next five years, according to global market research and consulting firm NPD DisplaySearch.

Specifically, tablet shipments are predicted to grow from 81.6 million units in 2011 to 424.9 million units by 2017.

NPD analysts are attributing the surge to an expected flourish in diversity among mobile operating systems and display technologies.

NPD DisplaySearch senior analyst Richard Shim further explained in the report:

So far in this relatively young product category, the tablet PC market has been dominated by Apple and has tended to include a number of competing products that are similarly configured to the iPad.

However, as the market matures and competitors become better attuned to consumer preferences and find opportunities to break new ground, we expect the landscape to change dramatically, giving consumers more choices, which will drive demand for more devices.

By next year, NPD posited that Apple will control close to 75 percent of the global tablet platform market with iOS on the iPad.

However, even though Apple is expected to hold on to the lead for the next five years, they'll lose a significant grasp on it. NPD researchers predict iOS will account for a little more than 50 percent of the spectrum by 2017.

Instead, Android will grow significantly as NPD points towards Amazon's Kindle Fire for igniting more diversification in the market. Furthermore, Windows 8 is expected to play a bigger role in this field, leaping from a fractional 1.5 percent in 2012 by 7.5 percent in 2017.

Chart via NPD DisplaySearch

Related:

Topics: iPhone, Apple, Hardware, Laptops, Mobility, Processors, Tablets

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47 comments
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  • Considering how crazy NPD's polls sometimes are, no point to take any of ..

    ... those predictions seriously.

    While iPhone's marketshare in USA by hard data is over 50%, NPD polled people and said that Apple's share for Q1 is 29%. I think anyone can understand the difference in accuracy between financial report statistics and polls.
    DDERSSS
    Reply Vote

    • Yup

      Trusting these "research" companies is like trusing your federal government..... Ya. Right! :-)
      Gisabun
      Reply Vote

  • apple will be insignificant by 2017

    with the glorified phone o.s hastily put to gather on a large screen the ipad has no future against windows. if ipad has to survive it will have to cut prices a very deadly scenario for apple.
    augustus.rome
    Reply Vote

    • And your opinion is insignificant in 2012

      The [I]glorified phone o.s hastily put to gather[/I], as you said, has shifted the entire tablet industry from desktop OS'es to mobile. Even your beloved Windows is being forked in order to fit onto a tablet. Remember Windows on Arm, not exactly being the same as desktop Windows?
      Secondly, you sound a lot like these firms with this: [I]ipad has no future against windows [/I]. These same analysts predicted that iPhone had no future, then that Windows phone would surpass iPhone by 2013 and many other similar predictions fit for comedy.

      Finally what makes you think Apple has to cut prices in order for it to survive. Have they done so, with iMacs?. MacBooks? iPhones? Why would they do that with iPad, the most profitable and best selling tablet?

      I feel your entire premise is based on, [I] I am making a very long term prediction for tech, that nobody will remember I made, five years from now [/I]. Much like these analysts do.
      MG537-23482538203179240121698430309828
      Reply Vote

    • Doubtful.. Windows 8 Metro is a NASTY UI Paradigm

      It's FUGLY and really hard to use and understand. I can see it gaining as much traction int he tablet space as Windows Phone 7 (ie: in the margin of error).

      After years of saying "I don't get the iPad" - just got one last night and wow - it will replace my POS Windows Netbook and will supplement my MacBook quite well. That's what MS is up against. And given MS has no idea how to do this right I think it will fail
      itguy10
      Reply Vote

      • You can use

        your endless grids of dead icons until Apple gets sick of modding its 1980's OS and brings out a Metro lookalike.

        I like the Metro interface, but even if I did think it "fugly", it's functionality would still get me to choose it over an icon graveyard ;-)
        tonymcs@...
        Reply Vote

      • And so you say and I except that for you... The question

        tonymcs@...
        is how many of you are out there? Fugly but functional vs Sharp and also functional. Let me see where will I put my money. I know last time I had to choose between a car I found fugly but hey it was functional and several models that were far better looking and hey they were still functional to boot:) I choose the good looking and functional one:)

        Pagan jim
        James Quinn
        Reply Vote

    • Glorified smartphone OS is good enough for a tablet...

      or at least that's what consumers seem to think. There's absolutely no proof that consumers want to run desktop applications on a tablet or that there is a need to do so. The idea that everyone wants to run Microsoft Office on a tablet is ridiculous. Most of the people I know that own Windows desktops don't own Microsoft Office even if they use it on their jobs. Normally, they just don't need it for everyday use at home. Windows 8 tablets aren't likely to be all that inexpensive, either because they'll likely require more hardware resources to be as efficient as a tablet running a glorified smartphone OS.
      ConstableOdo
      Reply Vote

      • Bad juju

        Yeah, but you have to admit that paying people to spray FUD in online forums might get 500 or so people to wait, just to see what Windows 8 is all about. That's all they want. They're spending thousands of dollars per month on an online astroturfing campaign that at best could sell 4 or 5 thousand units. You have to wonder who counts the beans in that place.
        Robert Hahn
        Reply Vote

      • Juju is right

        [i]Yeah, but you have to admit that paying people to spray FUD in online forums might get 500 or so people to wait, just to see what Windows 8 is all about. That's all they want. They're spending thousands of dollars per month on an online astroturfing campaign that at best could sell 4 or 5 thousand units. You have to wonder who counts the beans in that place.[/i]

        That has to be one of the most asinine things I've ever read here.

        But I believe it.
        CaviarGreen
        Reply 1 Vote

    • Fascinating

      It is utterly fascinating that you call the mobile OS that knocked WM out of the market, inspired Android, and brought BB down a "...glorified phone o.s hastily put together..." It says a lot about Microsoft's and RIM's products that those well established players were taken down by a hastily put together os and that same os reinvigorated the smartphone market and started a viable and sustainable tablet market.
      NonFanboy
      Reply Vote

      • MSFT has the better Reality Distortion Field

        Always has. Can you imagine anything more idiotic than some of the standard FUD? Security though, wait for it, obscurity?

        All your wintards can't stop the iPad though!
        comp_indiana
        Reply Vote

    • Apple will have to cut prices. Of course they will...

      Just like Apple has had to really cut the prices in the mp3 player business (their iPods) just to claw an meager little hold in this market that is overrun with other innovative competitors... NOT!

      The tablet market looks to be just like the mp3 player market with these key differences: 1) it is growing much more quickly than Apple's iPod business ever did. 2) Apple is innovating faster with iPad than they did with iPod. 3) Apple is integrating iPad with their ecosystem faster, broader, deeper and sooner than they did with the original iPod / iTunes product. 4) Apple has more competitors with much bigger budgets facing them than they did with iPod, but the competition looks to be about as brain-dead as last time around.

      It's just like it was with the iPod. The competition is selling hardware, or they are selling content, or they are selling software. In the mean time, Apple is focused on developing and selling user experience. Apple is the only player is the tablet user experience market. And that is why for tablets, the future of the iPad will look a lot like the history of the iPod...
      z2217
      Reply Vote

    • The train has left the station...

      Office on ARM? Who the hell cares and how do you compete with this...
      http://brettterpstra.com/ios-text-editors/
      frogspaw
      Reply Vote

  • Oversimplified Analysis

    [i]Windows 8 is expected to play a bigger role in this field, leaping from a fractional 1.5 percent in 2012 by 7.5 percent in 2017.[/i]

    That is rubbish! Windows 8 / RT bring productivity and convergence to the table, and more people are going to rapidly opt for devices with these OSs, over iOS and Android devices. How many people are going to choose to buy a tablet and a laptop, when they can buy a hybrid? How many people are going to buy a brand new tablet, with a brand new OS, when they can buy a Windows 8 hybrid, and gain access to Windows' invaluable legacy environment, as well as its new? How many people are going to buy iOS and Android tablets, when they will be able to get the same familiar environment with Windows 8 / RT tablets, that will be able available on desktop and all-in-ones - simplifying their computing ecosystems? These guys keep coming up with oversimplified analyses.
    P. Douglas
    Reply Vote

    • I think the success of iOS and Android

      Showed most people don't give a rat's butt about "Windows Legacy". Even increasing Mac sales prove that point.

      People want to put the torture that is Windows behind them and go on to something better.
      itguy10
      Reply Vote

      • Increasing Mac sales.

        Hehe...5% marketshare...whooo hooo!
        bmonsterman
        Reply Vote

    • W8 Hybrids sounds good in theory...

      Not so much in practice as we've learnt with Tablet PCs the past decades. In tablet mode it's heavy, clunky, probably will need internal fans to keep cool. And cost, they are saying the Lenovo IdeaPad Windows 8 Ultrabook/tablet hybrid could cost as much as $1,900. I could pick-up a MacBook Air and an iPad an still it will be cheaper than this hybrid.
      dave95.
      Reply Vote

      • ....and in practice.

        The most popular accessory for iPads is an external keyboard. It makes more sense to have a notebook with a detachable tablet for those ultraportability use cases than to have a tablet that requires a dock and external keyboard. Hybrids are nothing like the old Tablet PCs with the keyboards permanently attached.
        Lester Young
        Reply Vote

    • Looking ahead

      [ul][i]more people are going to rapidly opt for devices with these OSs, over iOS and Android devices[/i][/ul]At some point we would like to see something other than hype and mouthware. It seems as though Windows is the product of the future... and it always will be. No matter how poorly the current offerings are doing, we're told that success will come with the next revision, or the next hardware vendor, or the parting of the seas or the dance of the unicorns.

      We've been hearing this for over a year about Windows Phone. The phones are limping along, they don't reek of death, but they are hardly setting the world on fire either. Yet any minute now, or any quarter, or any year, the skies will open and Windows will be everywhere. You can only try to sell snake oil for so long before people notice that the product is still snake-bit.

      So don't just talk, do something. Make something that sells. And then brag about that, instead of telling us how great it's gonna be. Someday.
      Robert Hahn
      Reply Vote
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