A report from the Juniper agency points out that in 2013. they were sent more than 20 million phablets worldwide. This data indicates the popularity that large screens are acquiring among consumers, who perhaps are looking for a more comfortable touch experience that they have already obtained using a tablet. Growth forecasts are very high.
In their study they have considered a phablet any mobile device with a touch screen larger than 5,6 inches. This is a different criterion than the 5 inches that are commonly used as the limit. The truth is that most of the flagships of the large companies have exceeded equaled or surpassed this mark and there are already more differentiated models that are around 6 inches and are madly close to the 7 inches of compact tablets.
The data is not crazy and is that almost the half of them would be Samsung's Galaxy Note 3 which presumably would have sold 5 million units in its first weeks in stores and 10 million in the first 2 months.
Those 20 million would represent little in the 1.000 million smartphones that would have been sold in 2013 according to various consultancies such as Gartner and Deloitte. But the growth forecast is important. That is, the trend does not seem like it will be a one-day flower. In fact, we have seen new devices with huge screens arrive in late 2013 and at CES 2014. Huawei Ascend Mate 2, ZTE Grand SII, ZTE Iconic Phablet, ASUS ZenFone 6 and others arrived at the Las Vegas fair but then we have seen models such as the Sony Xperia T2 Ultra or the HP Slate 6 Voice Tab.
In short, we have rope for a while and the normal thing is that the sales of this format continue to increase. So much so that Juniper calculates that 2018 million phablets will be shipped by 120. This involves multiplying the current results by six.
Beyond the debates about the comfort of this type of mobile devices, the truth is that sales are working. At first it seemed like a phenomenon typical of the Asian market but it is expanding. Phones less than 5 inches are beginning to remain in the minority with iPhone resisting at that size, although there are rumors that Apple they will also give up. In that case, Juniper's predictions could fall short.
Source: Android Authority