Tablet PCs Predicted to Reach Over 400 Million Units Sold by 2017

Tablets are predicted to outsell notebooks by 2017, making it the most popular mobile device in coming years. The estimated number is 416 million units by that year, which is four times the number at present.

Tablets are believed to even overtake smartphones in the future, many of the latter are more expensive than Android tablets today even if the two kinds of gadgets offer similar features and computing abilities. Today, most smartphones which run on quad-core processors have a price tag above $400. On the other hand, tablets which have quad-core CPUs can be bought for less than $200.

PC shipments, for its part, will also increase from the 348 million units to be sold this year to as many as 809 million units in 2017.

Casual notebook users are expected to eventually prefer tablets over notebooks. This might happen as tablets become more comfortable to accomplish daily tasks and easier to carry around than notebooks.

Notebook sales, meanwhile, will increase but by that time, will still not exceed the sales of PCs. In 2017, notebook sales could reach 393 million units. By comparison, 208 million units are being sold today. Taken together, tablets and notebooks will comprise 40% of the computing market.

These things considered, the demand for tablets, notebooks, and PCs will depend on many factors, including developments in technology and the availability of parts for making these devices.

via softpedia