One in Three Online Consumers to Use a Tablet by 2014 - eMarketer

One in three people who are online will use a tablet device in 2014, eMarketer predicts. That would represent 90 million people.


That could have many consequences. Beyond the obvious benefits for firms that make and sell tablets, some percentage of those devices will be connected to mobile broadband networks. That means incremental revenue for access providers. 


Application providers will have to create user interfaces that do not require use of a mouse or keyboard. Content providers will have 90 million new screens that are primarily content consumption devices. App stores will have a chance to sell more content of all types to those new devices. 


Mobile marketers will be "freed" from the "tyranny" of small screens and will have a new potential audience of 90 million people whose attention partly will be shifted from other devices and might also represent some incremental new attention as well. 


Tablets also will blur the lines between "mobile" and "fixed" usage. Tablets are likely to be used while people are on couches, and not so much when people actually are in transit or out and about. 


More than the screen size, that usage pattern will create distinct marketing opportunities different than the location-driven smart phone screen or the "work-oriented" PC screen. Where devices tend to be used, screen size, storage and output and input methods will tend to shape smart phone, tablet and PC environments as distinct venues.


Right now, eMarketer estimates that 33.7 million Americans use a tablet device at least monthly. 


Growth will slow to double digits beginning in 2012, but the number of users will rise to nearly 90 million, or 35.6 percent of all Internet users, by 2014. One in Three Online Consumers to Use a Tablet by 2014