Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Tablets, Smartphones Amid More PC Decline

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Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Tablets, Smartphones Amid More PC Decline

Gartner today has released its latest figures charting its overall predictions for how IT devices — from PCs to mobile handsets — are going to perform this year and in 2014. As in years before, numbers will continue to climb: in 2013, overall shipments will rise 5.9% to 2.35 billion, and will rise again in 2014 to 2.5 billion units, driven by portable, often less expensive,  just as powerful mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets. Android will account for just over one-third of all devices this year, and nearly half in 2014. It’s an Android world after all.

But continuing a trend we have been seeing for some time, the PCs that started it all for consumers will not be the hardware reaping the most benefits from that growth. They will decline this year to 305 million units shipped, Gartner says, before dropping again in 2014 to below 300 million (289 million).

In the meantime, more portable mobile devices will continue to replace them. Smartphones will continue to be the most popular IT device sold. The 1.8 billion units that will be shipped this year, equates to about six times the number of PCs. But while tablets are still far behind both at only 201 million units, they will be growing the fastest, up some 68% on 2012. In comparison, mobile phone growth is 4.3%, actually slower than the overall average of 5.9%.

The “ultramobile” category is an odd one and it will be interesting to see how this evolves. This is gartner’s preferred term for the neither-here-nor-there category of hardware that includes devices like Chromebooks, tablet/PC hybrids and non-traditional “phablets”, and Gartner’s guess is that whatever impact they will have on sales will be to the detriment of tablets rather than PCs or smartphones:

“The increased availability of lower priced basic tablets, plus the value add shifting to software rather than hardware will result in the lifetimes of premium tablets extending as they remain active in the household for longer. We will also see consumer preferences split between basic tablets and ultramobile devices,” writes Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

In any case their impact will be minimal for now. Out of the 2.35 billion devices sold this year, only 20 million will be ultramobiles.

When it comes to platforms, there aren’t many surprises here. Android — which has been dominating the computing industry for a while now with very ubiquitous smartphones running on Google’s OS — will continue to ride that wave. This year there will be 866 million Anroid units shipped — or roughly one-third of all the devices that will be sent out for sale. Android devices will continue their climb, at a rate fatster than that of overall devices. They will hit the billion-unit mark in 2014, with 1.06 billion Android-powered units, equating to just under half of the 2.5 billion devices sold that year.

More to come.

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