Tablets vs PCs in SA
With forecasts suggesting that the tablet is set to overtake the PC in 2013, holiday sales from local retailers paint a clearer picture for the trend in South Africa.
The International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that in 2013, 172.4 million tablet units will be shipped across the world, while research firm, NPD, reaches even further and pegs global tablet shipments hitting 240 million units this year.
Both of these groups predict the growth in tablets will be at the expense of PCs.
However, despite the predictions outlining the expected global trend in 2013, local retailers show a mixed trend from South African consumers over the 2012 holiday period.
Online retail
According to both Kalahari.com and Takealot.com, more tablets were sold over the holiday period on their sites than PCs.
“Comparing tablets and PCs, tablets outsold PCs,” Kalahari told BusinessTech.
“Our annual festive season survey predicted they (tablets) would be one of the favourites and it turned out to be true.”
Kalahari.com also noted that there has been a marked increase in traffic coming to its site via tablet devices, with an increase of over 300%, comparing November 2012 to November 2011.
“The predominant traffic source is still, however, PC traffic and mobile,” it said.
Takealot.com also noted that tablets sales are growing, but said that laptop sales have also been strong.
Going to the shops
Brick and mortar tech retail, however, shows a more consistent trend.
Tech and electronics retailer, Incredible Connection noted that PC (laptop) sales were outnumbering tablet sales two-to-one.
During the 2012 holiday period, PCs continued to outsell tablets, but according to Marco Van Niekerk, chief executive of Incredible Connection, the gap is shrinking.
“[This holiday season] the South Africa consumer raced to embrace the tablet or mobile device – partly because of network subsidies and offers from major banks that made it very accessible,” he said.
However, despite the growth, van Niekerk noted that consumers are starting to understand the cost and functionality of tablets (versus PCs), which ultimately influences decision-making.
“Consumers are starting to recognise that a tablet or smartphone is a consumption device, with a notebook being a creative device,” he said.
“Tablets can not substitute a notebook in terms of functionality, it only offers additional access.”
“Globally, the forecast is for tablet sales to overtake PC sales in 2013, but in the South African context we do not foresee the migration to be that aggressive, taking into account the December sales results where notebooks still outperformed tablets with a factor of 2:1,” van Niekerk said.
2012 gadget winners
Over the 2012 festive season, tablets proved to be the most popular buy at tech retailers, with the best selling tablet on kalahari.com and at Incredible Connection being the Google Nexus 7, though Apple’s devices still proved popular search terms.
However, Kalahari pointed out that it was actually the gobii e-reader that was the highest selling device, overall.
Takealot’s top-selling gadgets turned out to be external storage in the form of portable hard drives and Micro SDHC cards.
Looking at 2013, all the retailers questioned forsee that mobile devices – tablets and ultrabooks – will continue to grow as per industry trend.
More tablet and PC news
Dell sounds the warning bell for FY results
The need for upgradability in the PC world is dead
Loading ...