Phablets will take up 20% of the market share of smartphone devices by 2019, according to a report from Juniper Research.
The Hampshire-based research consultancy claims that over 400 million of the larger-screened smartphones will be shipped in 2019, five times the 138 million expected to ship this year.
‘Phablets’, a portmanteau of phone and tablet, come equipped with a larger screen, facilitating the increasingly popular role of a phone as a primary multimedia devices. Apple, who released its iPhone 6 Plus last year, saw sales of the device boost iPhone’s gross profit margin by 2%, up to 39.9%.
However, the report suggests that the offering of cheaper devices will be the main driver of the phablet market:
"While the iPhone 6 Plus has brought the category further into the limelight, it is budget devices that will drive phablets into the global mainstream."
Juniper also predicts that the shift will impact the tablet market. Consumers with phablets will be less likely to buy tablets with small screens and may be put off by the price of larger-screened tablets. This will have a particular impact on tablet adoption in areas where smartphones are used by people as their primary device, such as China.
"In particular, the expanding Asian and African markets are used to having smartphones as their primary computing devices, which will drive up screen sizes for these devices to enable easier use of computing functions, particularly content creation," the report claims.
"The same chips can now power any mobile device, from smartphones to laptops," remarked report author James Moar. "Hardware capabilities are blurring, with devices like cellular-connected tablets, phablets and smartphones with console-level graphics and sound systems becoming much more common. This shifts device design parameters to budgets and use cases, rather than technological features."
The company also predicted phablets would see more use in the workplace in coming years as the BYOD trend accelerates.
