Over the last months, the number of tablets sold worldwide has slowly decreased. The question then arises whether this is a bad thing and if a decreasing sales number also means that people don’t like tablet devices and thus spend less time on tablets. We listed some important facts in this post.
- Tablets are mostly used for entertainment purposes
Whereas some experts previously claimed tablets would become the new office laptop, they turned out to be a great device for reading the news, watching videos and playing games. This sounds logical, as tablets are enjoyed in a more casual setting like the living room or bedroom, and have a perfect size and high-resolution displays. These purposes make that tablets are often used less heavy than smartphones and will thus need replacing long after a smartphone device.
- Tablets have an average lifespan of 4 years
When looking at the average lifespan of a tablet device, a study by IDC shows that people use tablet devices for approximately four years before they buy a new one. This is longer than was initially thought and might thus be one of the causes that people buy less tablet devices.
- Tablets are often used by multiple people
A study by Gigaom Research shows that tablets are often used by multiple people (families in particular). As most tablets allow people to install multiple user accounts, it becomes easier to use the same tablet for several people.
- The booming market of phablets
Another important reason for the lower sales number of tablets is the introduction of the ‘phablet’ – a category of mobile devices designed to combine the functions of a smartphone and tablet. As consumers increasingly buy devices with a screen that is larger than that of a smartphone and smaller than that of a tablet, the consumption of tablets might become superfluous. Read our post on phablets for more information.
The facts listed above show that people still use tablets, but less frequently and usually they’re shared with multiple people. Moreover, the introduction of phablets causes consumers to divide their attention to even more devices; they now have to choose between tablets, smartphones, phablets, laptops, PC’s, and tools like the Apple watch.
Optimize your internal and external communication for any device
The introduction of so many different size screens makes it increasingly important for organizations to optimize their internal and external communications for whatever device their target group uses. From a content perspective, it means that tablets might contain more in-depth content, while phones should have content that’s easy to consume when people are on the go as well.
In order to provide an optimized reading experience, imgZine regularly does research on mobile trends and different reading patterns of people on tablets and smartphones. Check out our reports here or subscribe to our newsletter to receive our latest reports!
