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TECHnalysis Research Guest Column
January 30, 2014 FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- It's fashionable these days to refer to the PC and PC market as being dead or dying and to speak glowingly of what many believe to be its inevitable successor: the tablet. But there are increasing signs that the tablet market, while still growing, is starting to slow. So, the obvious question now is, whither computing? The answer lies no further away than your purse or pocket. We're on the cusp of a computing metamorphosis driven by a key fundamental change: the ascendance of the smartphone as the ultimate personal computing device. Have your doubts? Well, consider this. My firm, TECHnalysis Research, and others are predicting that worldwide unit sales of the 5-inch and larger smartphone category (commonly called "phablets" but perhaps better termed "mobile connected devices") will not only outpace the popular smaller screen (7- to 8-inch) tablet category this year, but notebook PCs as well. And not by a small margin. Specifically, we expect these larger smartphones — many of which include multi-core CPUs, full HD resolution displays, and the ability to do "real" computing on them — will ship in the range of 240 million units this year, compared with about 173 million notebooks and 157 million smaller tablets. By 2016, TECHnalysis Research expects these mobile connected devices will outsell all traditional PCs or all tablets (depending on the comparison you make) and by 2018, one in three smartphones will fall into the large screen category. This is a monumental change in terms of the relevance and importance of different device categories, but it is indicative of the usage trends we've already started to see. People are spending significantly more time on their phones and less time on their PCs and, for some, even their tablets. Plus, the amount of time spent talking on smartphones continues to decrease, while the amount spent on news, data, entertainment and other forms of communication continues to increase. They truly have become always-on, always-connected mobile computing devices. The implications of the changes go far beyond simple usage metrics, however. They reach into vendor influence, regional impact and more. Android currently runs on more than 95% of all large smartphones, giving Google an even greater potential impact on the future of computing than what many believe they already have. From a regional perspective, the influence of the developing BRIC countries will finally start to make a significant difference because while the interest in PCs and tablets isn't universal, the need for a phone is. And from a vendor perspective, the power that Asian smartphone vendors will yield will be extremely important. In this light, both the increasingly chummy relationship between Samsung and Google and Lenovo's purchase of the Motorola smartphone business from Google will have significant long-term impact on the overall computing market. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see other major Chinese smartphone vendors like Huawei and ZTE look to make acquisitions of their own. While it might be difficult to make the mental shift to thinking about computing with a phone, the practical reality is that the change has already begun. Here's a link to the original column: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2014/01/30/google-lenovo-motorola-smartphones-commentary/5039011/
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