Mobile Marketing Daily reports that tablet shipments will overtake PCs in 2015. More than a geeky piece of techy news, this has real and practical implications for digital marketers everywhere. Today, not tomorrow.
I present two key questions you should have already been asking a while back, but if not, you should ask now:
- Navigation: Is your website ready for touch user experience?
- Location: Is your website ready for a mobile experience that isn’t always happening at home?
Mobile internet is not something to put on your development roadmap, but hopefully something that already happened. If it hasn’t, then you need to ask yourself how you missed it. The shift in consumer’s preference has been clear and coming for a while now.
Tablet shipments worldwide are expected to surpass those of PCs in 2015, although PCs will enjoy something of a rebound in sales this year.
Research firm Gartner projects that almost 321 million tablets will be shipped next year compared to 261.7 million traditional PCs (desktop and notebook computers). Adding in “premium” ultramobiles, which include high-end laptop/tablet hybrids like Windows 8 devices and Gartner classifies as PCs, would bring the total PC market in 2015 to nearly 317 million.
This year, 256 tablets, including the iPad and Android-based devices, will ship versus 308 million PCs, including 296,000 traditional units.
Despite years of shrinking sales, 2014 is shaping up as a relative bright spot for PCs. After declining 9.5% in 2013, the global market is on pace to contract only 2.9% this year, thanks in part to Microsoft ending support for Windows XP.
On a final note, beware of taking an iPhone-centric strategy.
Google’s Android is expected to continue to dominate worldwide, with a 30% share of shipments across mobile phones, ultramobiles (including tablets) and PCs in 2014.