The IDC is at it again, with another prediction. This time, it’s about the Surface Pro 3, a 12-inch tablet that Microsoft unveiled not too long ago. According to the IDC, Microsoft’s ‘two-in-one’ Surface Pro 3 is expected to play a huge role in the tablet market.

“In the past year alone, the phablet share of smartphone shipments has more than doubled, from 4.3% in the first quarter of 2013 to 10.5% in the first quarter of this year, representing 30.1 million units shipped. As large phones clearly impact near-term tablet growth, IDC expects the market to rebound by shifting its focus back toward larger-screened devices. Products with larger screens – like Microsoft’s new 2-in-1, the 12-inch Surface Pro 3 – are expected to play a greater role in the market going forward,” IDC explains.

IDC goes on to explain that Microsoft is expected to benefit from the shift towards larger tablet screens, especially over the next few years. In fact, IDC believes Microsoft’s Windows-based device share is expected to double between now and the year 2018.

IDC believes that there are two major factors for the slowdown of the tablet market. First, consumers are keeping their tablets for a lot longer than anticipated and eventually pass along their old tablets to family members. Second, 5-inch phablets are becoming quite popular, preventing consumers from purchasing a larger tablet device.

It looks like Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 is expected to provide a boost in the overall tablet market share over the next few years, obviously great news for the devices and services giant. Microsoft is touting this device as a replacement to your laptop, offering a hybrid feature-set between a tablet and a laptop. You can read all about the Surface Pro 3 here.

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