from Felix Richter, Statista.com
by Mathias Brandt, with contributions from Econintersect
On Thursday (16 October 2014), Apple unveiled its latest iPad.
However, it remains to be seen if a new generation of the iPad can boost flagging sales. In fact, the tablet hype seems to be over already with both IDC and Gartner revising their sales forecasts for this year, predicting a downward trend. According to media reports, the primary reason for this is the fact that people are not changing/upgrading their tablets so often.
Additionally many people see little use for tablets in their everyday lives. The new rising star in the world of mobile devices seems to be the phablet. According to IDC, phablet sales are set to increase in 2014 by over 200 percent compared with 2013.
And Apple also announced a surprise product on Thursday, the iPad Air 2, which falls into the phablet category. What is unique with the new Apple product is the ‘universal’ SIM card. The so-called “Apple SIM” card will work with any carrier.
Before now SIM cards were carrier specific and one was typically purchased from a carrier as part of a long-term service contract. The new SIM card may also be made available for iPhones but for now it is available (apparently) only with the iPad Air 2.
This chart shows a worldwide mobile device sales forecast.
You will find more statistics at Statista