Apple, Google, Microsoft Battle For Enterprise-Owned Tablet Market, Making Up 20% Of Global Tablet Market By 2018
Apple, Google, and Microsoft will battle it out over the next several years to be the enterprise tablet leader as firms invest in company-owned tablets at an increasing rate. In fact, while global tablet sales have hit a serious plateau, according to Forrester’s five-year global tablet forecast — growing to just 250 million units sold by 2018, up from 218 million this year — Forrester projects that 20% of the total tablet market will be business-owned by 2018, up from 14% this year.
Already, more than half of information workers use a tablet for work, and 55% say their choice of bring-your-own-device is driven by the fact that their company hasn’t provided them with a tablet, but they either need or want to use one. In the OS race, while Apple is the software innovation leader, Microsoft, with Windows 10, will become the new enterprise standard and offer the most innovative hardware. Google’s affordable price point and security offerings will keep Android in the race.
According to the forecast, while tablet sales slow, the installed base of tablet users will continue to increase sharply, from 580 million this year to 782 million in 2018.