Santa Clara, Calif. – Led by tablets, touch-enabled device shipments will more than double over the next four years, according to PD DisplaySearch.
The research firm’s latest report has 762.7 million mobile PC devices shipping worldwide by 2017, up from the 367.6 million that shipped in 2012.
The spike will be fueled by an increase in demand for tablets, primarily inexpensive, white-box models in China, said Richard Shim, senior analyst with NPD DisplaySearch.
The increasing popularity of tablets will also have a negative impact on notebooks. NPD has notebook shipments decreasing about 10 percent over the next four years from 203.3 this year million to 183.3 million by 2017. However, shipments of notebooks featuring touchscreens will grow 48 percent year over year between 2013 and 2014
During the same period tablet shipments will increase to 579.4 million from 265.5 million. White-box versions will comprise about one-third of this total.
