Mobile PC Shipment Forecast for 2016 Shows Glimmer of Hope for Notebooks

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Feeling pressure from large smartphones, tablet vendors will offer larger products to compete with notebooks

In the mobile PC market, the presence of large smartphones (5 inches and above in sizes) has grown considerably this year and eroded tablet sales. In particular, the share of 7-inch models in the global tablet market has contracted from 57% in 2014 to the estimated 50% this year. With large smartphones moving into their territory, tablet vendors in response have rolled out products of even larger sizes with the intention of expanding into the notebook market. TrendForce projects that tablets sized 10 inches and above will account for almost 30% of the global tablet market in 2016, a significant increase from the estimated 18% of this year.

Major tablet vendors that have released large tablets include Apple with its 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Samsung with its 18.4-inch Galaxy View and Microsoft with its 12.3-inch Surface Pro 4. In addition to having a larger display, iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4 also come with a detachable keyboard and a stylus as accessories. “The latest tablets from Microsoft and Apple clearly compete against notebooks, but they are limited to the business/professional market segment,” said Wang. “It will be difficult for large tablets to replace notebooks in the short term because the former are priced too high, whereas low-priced notebooks are plentiful.”

More notebooks will adopt FHD resolution technology and narrow bezel design will drive sales

By display resolution specs, HD (1366x768 pixels) notebook models account for over 80% of the global notebook market this year. By contrast, FHD (1920x1080 pixels) and above models represent only 18~19%. Prices of notebook panels have steadily declined this year. In particular, prices of mainstream HD notebook panels (sized 14 and 15.6 inches) have dropped almost to their cash costs. Consequently, panel suppliers now rely on FHD products to maintain their profits in this market. TrendForce forecasts that the share of FHD and above models in the global notebook market is expected to grow to 25~28% next year.

In addition to the resolution upgrade, notebook vendors will also make the bezel surrounding the display narrower as a way to raise the average sales prices of their products. A prominent example is Dell XPS 13, which was released earlier this year. The dimensions of this notebook’s exterior casing are previously for a model with 11.6-inch display. However, Dell’s narrow bezel design manages to squeeze a 13.3-inch display into the casing. Notebooks with larger screens but are still easy to carry are expected to be a driving factor in future notebook sales.