Tablette Cafes, Nook discounts & Apple’s WWDC

June 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

With some help from Google Medoune Secke has set up they claim the first Tablet Café in the world in Dakar in Senegal.

Whilst it may not be the first, it’s, we think, a compelling concept for the African continent and possibly many other parts of the developing world. Affordability is key and compared to PC’s power outages are potentially less catastrophic.

The Dakar Equinoxe “… now sports 15 tablets and has installed cabins for private video chats, while a corner of the cafe is given over to a shop selling various items of electronic equipment.Three PCs remain enthroned on boxes near a wall, but they do not generate much interest among clients, who recline on the cafe’s bright orange and blue sofas, jabbing at their touch screens. Seck says his tablets cost more than PCs but they save on power bills as they consume 25 times less electricity.”

“Upon arrival, customers hand over an ID card and pay in advance for a set connection time before they are given a tablet. When they leave the device is reset, wiping out any data from their session, and it is ready fot the next customer. The Tablette Cafe charges the same price as its predecessor did for PCs: 300 CFA francs (60 euro cents, 80 US cents) per hour.”

“Our hope is that cyber cafes attract new customers interested in a more simple and interactive way of going online, and make significant savings on their number one operating expense: electricity,” Alex Grouet, Google’s business development manager in Francophone Africa, said in a blog post.

Meanwhile both over there and over here Nook are heavily discounting their tablets for the Fathers Day Fest the HD (7inch) is down $70 at $129 and £30 at £129, and the 10 inch HD+ is down $120 at $149 and £50 at £179 (all figures are “from”).

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Apple meanwhile has it’s Worldwide Developers Conference this week from 10-14 June in San Francisco but few if any iPad announcements are expected and most envisage an Ive driven iOS 7 upgrade and some music announcements with the possiblity of an iRadio service. We shall see. We love the logo!

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Source: Tablette Café – AFP

Filed Under: Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Tablets

Tablets up PCs down & they could crossover in Q4 this year

May 30, 2013 By Leave a Comment

IDC in the last couple of days have released updated forecasts for both PC and Tablet shipments for 2013 with projections going out as far as 2017.

They now forecast, on an annual basis, that tablets will overtake PC shipments in 2015. We still think, it is just possible, on a quarterly basis that Q4 2013 tablet shipments could surpass PCs.

Due to the significant historical seasonality of tablet sales it looks as if both tablet & PC shipments could be around the 80 million level in the last quarter of the year.

We shall see … in about 8 – 9 months time!

Another rather fascinating estimate has been produced by IDC of the move to 7 inch tablets. We must admit to being fans ourselves and therefore are not surprised. As they point out it is the speed of  change which is truly remarkable.

“ … another major shift in the tablet market has occurred around screen sizes. Apple’s first generation iPad, which included a 9.7-inch display, was perceived by many as the sweet spot for tablets. That is, until 7-inch Android-based tablets began to gain traction in the market. Apple responded with the iPad mini in the fourth quarter of 2012, and in the space of two quarters the sub-8-inch category exploded to overtake the larger-sized segment in terms of total shipments.”

We will leave you with our favourite chartists Tablet/ PC crossover depiction!

 

Filed Under: PCs, Tablets

European PC sales plummet and may already have been overtaken by tablets

May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Gartner  yesterday reported that Western European PC unit shipments fell by over 20% in the first quarter.

In vendor terms only Apple and Lenovo showed growth. Acer were down a staggering 37% followed by HP down 32%.

Of the three reported countries (France, Germany and the UK) France tumbled the most being down by over 25%. Germany was down 20.3% and the UK 16%.

Gartner comment “The first quarter of 2013 brought the worst quarterly decline in Western Europe since Gartner started tracking PC shipments in this region,”

Click to enlarge

We previously mentioned that on a global basis tablets may overtake PCs in shipment terms next year.

It may have happened already in Europe!

Futuresource reported that quarter 4 2012 tablet shipments in Europe were 15.9 million and for the year 35.4 million.

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Whilst it’s apples and oranges the annual IDC reported global tablet shipments for 2012 were around 125 million so Europe could be about 28% of the global market.

IDC reported quarter 1 global tablet shipments as 49.2 million. So if Europe’s share was 28% this would be 13.8 million tablets which figure is some way ahead of Gartner’s reported PC shipment estimates of 12.3 million!

We shall see!   

Filed Under: PCs, Tablets

Google Hear and Google Things!

May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Google kick off their three day developers conference today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco

It starts at 5pm BST (9am PST) and keynotes and much more is live streamed.

Todays Keynote & Android sessions should appear here:

After last years blockbusting Google Glass Skydivers many expect a rather lower key event this year. We’re not so sure there has to be some eyecatcher!

Rumoured happenings are:

  • Updated Nexus Tablets definitely 7 and possibly the 10 or even an 11!
  • Possibly an x phone form the Motorola Mobility stable.
  • The next alphabetically following android operating system update either Key Lime Pie 5.0 or just a rejuvinated  Jelly Bean 4.3.
  • A sort of Google Spotify on the music streaming front – Google Hear is our working name ‘cos Google Play is already taken and Google Listen may not warrant a  ressurection!
  • YouTube have already announced their pay Channels but there may be more from this source.
  • Perhaps further developments on a personal assistant front?
  • The Internet of Things (IOT) will also likely feature at some stage – Google Things has a certain ring to it!
  • The Cloud will also get more than a passing mention!
  • We do NOT think it will introduce its own currency to rival Amazon Coins although Google Bills has a certain “je ne sais quoi”!

We shall see and may report back later with some highlights

We’ll leave you with last years show stopper:

Filed Under: Google, Search, Tablets, Technology

7 inch tablets win the size battle!

May 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Two further, widely differing, estimates of quarter 1 shipments appeared yesterday from Canalys and Digitimes.

The only recurring numerical trend in the majority of the estimates and our average, we can identify, is the figure 9 with Strategy Analytics being the exception! They currently compensate by being the closest to our average!

Click to enlarge

Canalys bundle their mobile devices including Tablets Smartphones and Notebooks, and the total of 308.7  breaks down as follows (in millions):

  • Smartphones –  216.3
  • Netbooks – 50.5
  • Tablets – 41.9

Digitimes simply provide the figures so we’ve created our own little table and incorporated, as ever, a few deductions, primarily from their percentages.

The fascinating figures we think are the breakdown by screen sizes.

At 56% of their total this means that nearly 18 million 7’s were shipped. As the iPad (maxi) is likely virtually all of the 10’s this means that their 7’s came in at something like 13 million so we have a mini to maxi iPad scenario of 66.6% to 33.3% which is even higher than we imagined.

With Google, ala mainly Nexus 7, performing strongly in third place Appleinsider have news of a likely  upgrade coming out next week ahead of the rumoured iPad mini version 2 being delayed until the third quarter.

The tablet wars continue but the size battle, for now, seems to have been won by the 7!

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Tablets

Tablet Sales to overtake PCs next year

May 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Click to enlarge

Over the last few months we’ve run a couple of articles looking at the possible crossover point of the two devices and when Tim Cook’s “…. it’s only a matter of time” might materialise. It has been getting nearer and nearer!

Following IDC’s latest tablet shipment’s release there has been some comments on the closing shipment levels of tablets and PCs:

Our graph (with linear trendlines) and IDC’s data now estimates a Q4 2014 crossover.

Over the last couple of years as per our table on average the quarterly seasonality has shown a low 1st quarter followed by a couple of comparatively even ones and then the annual spendfest bonanza. These trends have been reinforced, unsurprisingly, to an extent by product announcements ahead of or during the last quarter.

Several earlier estimates this year were for an annual shipments totaling 200 million.

Tablet sales/shipments estimates 2013 (millions)
Historical Actual Forecast
average% units units
Quarter1 14.3% 49.2
Quarter2 20.3% 55.0
Quarter3 23.6% 60.0
Quarter4 41.8% 85.8
Year 100.0% 250.0
Sources: Actual IDC, Forecast & compilation I.co.uk

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In the light of the first quarters actual performance we are guessing a figure of 250 million and the above breakdown by quarter.

If, and it’s a VERY large IF, these guesses turned out to be somewhere near the mark then the crossover point might be as soon as quarter 4 of THIS YEAR! We shall see!

Health warning – Whilst our data is principally sourced from IDC in this article as with most estimates they tend to be subject to regular revision and these revisions may not be publicly available. Our source data in this instance is solely the publicly released data.

Filed Under: Tablets

Apple tablet market share below 40% again

May 2, 2013 By Leave a Comment

IDC yesterday released their preliminary estimates for the first quarter of the year and whilst not really containing any surprises they do confirm the markets tremendous strength. Samsung in particular remarkably managed to actually grow its shipments against the last (seasonal) quarter whilst Amazon did not! Microsoft are making a little progress but Barnes & Noble continue to struggle.

In spite of Apple’s impressive shipments in Q1 which exceeded most estimates their market share at 39.6% which is the third consecutive quarter that they have ever been below 40%. In our view this simply reflects the incredibly competitive market place.

In operating system terms Microsoft with Windows are again making progress rising to third position but with only a 3.7% market share have a way to go to compete with iOS (39.6%) and Android (56.5%).

We’ve updated our average chart and eagerly await any further participants estimates!

Gartner are predicting that by 2017 a majority of companies will have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy  which primarily means tablets and/or smartphones and this can only help establish the tablet market, This may possibly favour Microsoft to a limited extent, in our view.

In geographic terms Gartner found that US enterprises are twice as likely to allow BYOD as European ones who have the lowest adoption rate internationally in regional terms, lagging India China and Brazil.

The IDC shipment estimate at 49.2 million is only just shy of our, sort of prediction that they might just reach 50 million this quarter so 200 million for the year is more than a distinct possibility. Last year on certain IDC figures Q! represented around 16% of the years total. This might imply an annual figure approaching just over 300 million! At the minute we would guess it could be nearer 250 rather than 200 million.

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Tablets

Worldwide Tablet Shipments – First out of the Blocks

April 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Very rapidly, after Apple announced its results on Tuesday (post Wall Street’s close), Strategy Analytics  today were the first to come up with their Global Tablet Shipments by Operating System for the quarter.

Interestingly they also allow us to calculate a total including White-box tablets. This figure at 47.6 million is some 7 million above the branded figure. They define “A white-box tablet” as “…. a product produced by one company (the manufacturer or ODM) that other companies (the vendors or OEMs) rebrand to make it appear as if they made it. White box tablets invariably use different components to branded tablet in order to keep costs to a minimum.” (ODM stands for Original Design Manufacturer).

Whichever global total figure is used it certainly confirms the strength of the market. The bumper holiday Quarter 4 figures (per IDC) were some 52.5 million so the drop this quarter is only 23% (on the branded figure). The equivalent figure in 2012 was 42%.

Apple can take some pleasure in increasing its market share to 48% v’s around 43% in the previous quarter.

Microsoft at least warrants a mention and might even creep into the top 5 in supplier terms with its Surface we shall see when the other estimates are released. Strategy Analytics also think it has some way to go as “Very limited distribution, a shortage of top tier apps, and confusion in the market, are all holding back shipments.”

 In other news earlier this month IDC  reported an exceptionally weak PC market with shipments down by 13.9% on the comparable quarter last year. This brings them down to 76.3 million which on Strategy Analytics Tablet estimates means the gap has narrowed again. We will report further on this when IDC release their Tablet estimates but it looks as if Tablet sales could overtake PCs in 2015 and it could be even earlier!

In completely unrelated news IHS iSuppli estimate that worldwide shipments of 10 million smart glasses by 2016 could take place. We shall see!

Filed Under: Tablets, Uncategorized

Tablet sales could exceed 50 million this Quarter as Notebook sales collapse

April 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Notebook shipments in the last quarter were down by almost 7 million both on the last quarter of 2013 and quarter 1 of 2012 Digitimes Research indicated today. . This is a double digit percentage fall in both cases (14.1% and 13.7% respectively). They report that this was “the sharpest decline in the notebook industry’s history.”

The leading suppliers are given as:

  •  Lenovo
  • HP
  • Acer
  •  Samsung
  • Asustek

Digitimes say that it’s likely that Samsung was the only vendor to show both quarterly and year-on-year growth.

As Tablets are displacing Notebooks to a significant extent we wondered if the relationship between the two devices gave any indications of the likely future trends.

From our graph the linear trend line on tablets, very approximately, indicates quarter 1 of 2013 shipments of 45 million and around 200 million for the year. We have seen not totally dissimilar annual figures from both Gartner (197.2 million) and IDC (190.9 million) which we commented on when predicting when Tablet shipments might overtake PCs.

Notebooks we see recorded drops from Q4 to Q1 in 2012 and 2011 of 5.1% and 7.6% when arguably their market was mature. A similar reduction in Tablet shipments would imply a figure between 48.5 and 49.8 million units.

With the majors announcing their quarterly results later this month worldwide estimates should be forthcoming soon thereafter and it will be interesting to see if, with the rumoured, strong market, tablet shipment are close to the 50 million level. We certainly expect them to be well over 45 million

We doubt whether on an annual basis yesterdays rumour of a 7” Microsoft tablet introduction later this year will increase shipments much over the 200 million level!

We wondered if they might call the Surface mini the reSurface!

We shall see!

Filed Under: Microsoft, Samsung, Tablets

Tablet sales to overtake PC’s in 2015?

April 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

 

Gartner have just released their Worldwide Devices forecasts going out to 2017. Devices they classify as “the combined shipments of PCs, tablets and mobile phones.”

We have included their Ultramobile category with PC’s.

Click to enlarge

We commented last week on IDC’s forecast where it looked as if Tablets would overtake PC’s towards the end of 2017. Gartner are showing a similar flatlining of PC shipments to IDC but envisage less of a slowing in the growth rate of tablets from 2014.

We reckon the relative compound annual growth rates from 2014 to 2017 are:

  • Gartner – 21%
  • IDC – 14%

We may not have as long to wait to see if Tim Cook’s “…it’s just a matter of time” prediction comes true.

Gartner see the overall device shipments nearing 3 billion by 2017 and their breakdown by operating system must depress both Microsoft and Blackberry (who at least, somewhat surprisingly, get a mention)!

We think that there could be some new players in the timeframe.

Again the only omission we feel is the smart TV as it is simply yet another connected device with a screen!

Filed Under: Tablets
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