Sales of PCs, tablets, and mobile phones will grow 9% this year, says Gartner

SAO PAULO-The combined sales of PCs, tablets, and mobile phones will add 2.4 billion units in 2013, an increase of 9% over the past year, Gartner reported today. The research firm noted that the proliferation of affordable tablets is accelerating the migration in the interests of the consumers of PCs for these devices.
"While there will be some people who will have both a PC and a tablet, especially those that use one or both for work and play, the vast majority of consumers will be satisfied with the tablet experience as your primary computing device," said Carolina Milanesi, Gartner's research Vice President.
As a result of this context, Gartner projects a 7.6% drop in sales of PCs and notebooks, to 315.2 million units. The consultancy pointed out that this is not a temporary trend, caused by an environment of greater economic austerity, but due to a change of consumer behaviour in the long run. The company noted, however, that the category of ultrabooks will help offset this decline, jumping from 9.8 million units in 2012 to 23.5 million this year.
For the tablets, the projection is a total sales of 197 million units in 2013, which represents an increase of 69.8% on last year, when the category registered a turnover of 116 million units. "The growth in the segment of tablets will not be limited to mature markets. Users in emerging markets will increasingly choose the tablet as its first computing device, "said Ranjit Atwal, Gartner's Research Director.
The fall in prices will also bring good reflexes in cellular category sales, especially in the segment of smartphones. For 2013, the forecast is that sales of mobile phones to register a volume of 1.87 billion, 1 billion units of these devices will be smartphones. With the porch, the category would register a 7.4% compared to last year.