When Apple released its first quarter earnings in late April, it reported that iPad sales were down substantially over last year's same quarter.

Apple CEO Tim Cook placed part of the blame on holiday 2012 orders for the iPad mini that were ultimately filled during Q1 2013, bolstering iPad sales numbers for that time period. He went on to say that while Apple did not sell as many tablets as the financial analysts had projected in Q1 2014, it was happy with its unit sales, which met its own internal predictions.

But something is going on in the tablet market that suggests our overall love affair with tablets may have cooled down, or at least the market for tablets has started to mature. Of course, Apple faced serious competition in 2013 from competitors like Google, Samsung, Amazon, which created very compelling products in the 7-inch and 10-inch categories that, in many cases, were cheaper than Apple's iPads.

There seems to be three key dynamics that are now shaping the future of tablets. The first is that in developed markets, where tablets have now been shipping since 2010, the consumer audience has figured out what a tablet can do and the need to refresh them yearly or even semi-annually no longer drives their thinking. Indeed, we are already seeing people with two- and three-year-old iPads or similar products that are very happy with what they have. It would take a dramatic new design or new features to get them to buy new models.

Another thing we are seeing is that most folks have figured out that tablets are highly sharable devices. This is especially true in families. Although there are some families where each person has a tablet of their own, the majority of homes have one or two that are shared. They too seem to be holding on to them and not in a great hurry to upgrade.

But there is one other dynamic that is coming up in our research that is interesting. While tablets at first were exciting to many, it turns out their smartphone really sits at the center of their digital universe. As screens on smartphones have been getting larger, users find they can do many of the same tasks on a tablet or a smartphone, particularly a phone with 5- or 6-inch screen. This doesn't necessarily mean they won't buy a tablet, too, but they seem to be scaling back on how much they are willing to pay for a new tablet.

It also seems that the tablet market has matured in developed markets faster than many expected. While PCs are now refreshed very 4-5 years, it is not clear what that refresh cycle is for tablets. Our research suggests it is every two years, but we are also seeing many keeping current tablets longer before upgrading.

While consumer demand for tablets has seemed to stabilize or flattened out in developed markets, the second dynamic and a bright spot is that business and enterprises have finally figured out how tablets could fit into their IT program, and we are seeing a real upswing for tablets in these markets. What is interesting is that in this market, while somewhat price conscience, IT managers do not buy cheap tablets. In fact, their pricing sweet spot for tablets hovers around $600-$800. They also tend to buy the larger 9- to 10-inch tablets and are using them for all types of business applications. This is very good for Apple since today it owns the tablet market and ultimately, pricier tablets help its overall bottom line. But like the consumer market, the IT market for tablets will become more competitive as Microsoft and Samsung bulk up their business class tablets and go after IT aggressively, too.

The third dynamic shaping the future of tablets is happening in emerging markets. In these markets, the smartphone rules the digital world. However, in most of these markets, smartphones are low-end models with not a lot of features and in many cases small screens. Two things are happening in these markets that suggest the real growth, especially in consumer tablets, will be with tablets in the 6- to 7-inch range. What we have found is that in emerging markets, smartphones have served as training wheels that introduce consumers to the world of computing. Once they buy a smartphone, they begin to realize what it can do and they want to do more. Five years ago, that would have perhaps meant an interest in something like a small, cheap laptop. Now it means that shoppers graduate to a tablet instead. It is true that cheap tablets have been big hits in emerging markets since most were in the $79 to $99 range. But they were cheaply made and at best served more like a portable media player. Most have stopped working or been put aside as useless beyond simple media consumption.

Now we are seeing real interest for phablets/tablets in emerging markets that deliver more processing power and a bigger screen that let users do more. And they are willing to buy tablets in the $129-$199 price range. They will never use a laptop or a mouse. Instead, this generation of users will be driven by touch input and potentially things like gestures and voice will become their UI. This is a big deal. For them their window to the world of real computing will come through tablets and for some, it will be the only device they use.

That is why even with the demand for tablets remaining somewhat steady in developed markets, we see real growth in tablets in emerging markets over the next 3-4 years as these folks use them to enter the age of personal computing.

I doubt that our love affair with tablets is actually over. But it does seem that the meteoric rise of tablets over the last three years is over, and we will probably just get to the point where tablets will sell around 400+ million per year steadily in the future.

For more, my firm has a new report that discusses the future of tablets.

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