Thorsten Heins: tablets will be dead in five years

The BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins has predicted that within five years, tablets will be obsolete.  Speaking to Bloomberg, Mr Heins remarked: ''I don't think there'll be a reason to have a tablet anymore.  Maybe a big screen in your workplace, but not a tablet as such.  Tablets themselves are not a good business model.''  That is quite a claim to make.  But is there any truth to it?  Let's take a look at the current tablet market.

Apple Ipad sales surged 65% year on year according to last quarter's results: 19.4 million were sold in the second quarter of this year compared to 11.8 million in the same quarter last year.  The BlackBerry Playbook has sold an estimated 2.4 million in two years, compared to nearly 112 million shipments for the Ipad, with revenues of over $58 billion.  Perhaps Heins is projecting BlackBerry's failure in the tablet market onto every other manufacturer in the sector.  Global tablet shipments reached just under 41 million in the first quarter of 2013.  According to the IDC, global tablet sales in 2012 grew by 78% year on year, and on current forecasts, will exceed desktop shipments in 2013 and portable PC shipments in 2014.

Global tablet sales forecasts

As this graph shows, analysts do not expect a slowdown in the growth of tablets.  Mobile computing in general is entering a boom period.  Smartphone activations have exceeded feature phone activations for the first time.

There are several reasons however to take a closer look at Mr Heins's statement.  Smartphones are increasing in size: the five inch form factor appears to be the current sweet spot.  Samsung has announced the Mega series of smartphones; two models sizes of 5.8 inches and 6.3 inches respectively.  If there is a positive reaction to these form factors, and sales for the Galaxy Note series suggests there will be, smartphone sizes may increase further, at which point the 7 inch tablet may become redundant.  After all, tablets are essentially large smartphones without calling capabilities.  So perhaps Heins's prediction may well be true with regards to the smaller tablets.

10 inch tablets are another matter.  PC sales are declining (over 13% year on year) as more and more of us switch to mobile computing.  Mobile operating systems cannot offer us the strength and variety of Windows, Mac OS or Linux, but who's to say they won't in future.  High end smartphones now ship with processors with clock speeds of almost 2 GHz.  Most ship with 2GB of RAM as standard.  The graphical capabilities of most smartphones are superb: playing Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City on my Galaxy Note 10.1 was truly an awe inspiring experience.  Nvidia's mobile Kepler graphics processor is capable of running Battlefield 3, a game a lot of current desktops struggle to handle!


Personally, I don't believe the tablet market will be dead within five years.  Or in the foreseeable future.  As they increase in processing and graphical power, the speed of adoption will only increase.  The success of the Chrome OS just proves that for most people, a full blown operating system is not necessary anymore.  Google Docs provides an office suite capable of performing most office functions.  Cloud gaming services like OnLive negate the necessity of needing ridiculous specifications and discrete graphics chips to run the latest games.

Perhaps BlackBerry will be dead within five years.  Just three years ago it was the major player in the smartphone market.  It failed to anticipate the success of IoS and Android.  Is there any reason to take seriously their prognostications now?