Context: Q4 Tablet sales reached 'record' high in Europe

Analyst's latest figures show tablets surpassed traditional notebooks and netbooks for the first time, with the UK leading adoption

Tablet sales across Europe smashed through the 4.5 million-unit barrier last Christmas, reaching a record high for the form factor, according to market watcher Context.

The analyst said the UK was leading the way in terms of sales with almost 1.5m tablets sold, with Germany in second place on 950,000. Despite the figures, Context said growth actually plummeted from 204.5 per cent in Q1 to 39.1 per cent in Q4 as the devices become more commoditised.

Tablets now account for 57 per cent of sales in the notebook/netbook/tablet segment, surpassing the traditional form factors for the first time in Q4 last year, Context revealed.

Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context, said: “Although tablets are expected to move into commercial environments too, this is expected to happen slowly and would for the time being represent an addition to, rather than a replacement of, the traditional clamshell systems.

“Recent efforts by vendors to provide ultraportable solutions such as thin and light clamshell laptops and hybrid solutions will also increasingly find their way into the commercial space and successfully compete with tablets,” she said.

However, all is not lost for the notebook, Pygott said, which could still be replaced with newer models as they come to the end of their product life cycles, meaning tablets would be used as secondary systems.

In terms of vendors, Android-based devices saw the biggest share of sales, reaching a market share of 69.8 per cent on a whopping 82.2 per cent growth. In comparison the iPad grew just 2.7 per cent with a market share of 28.9 per cent.

Again the UK led the way in Apple uptake, with a 45.7 per cent rise in sales. In the Android sphere, budget 7in devices put on the strongest performance, Context revealed, doubling year on year to reach 1.59 million units in the fourth quarter.

In addition, 10.1in tablets saw growth of 38.7 per cent and 8in tablets grew an impressive 578 per cent year on year.

On a less positive note, Microsoft suffered during the quarter, with market share for Windows 8 tablets remaining at 0.9 per cent during Q4.

But in more encouraging news for the vendor, Context hinted that the firm's share could grow slowly this year as business interest in its tablets increases.