New research has shown that the smart device market grew once again last year.
New research has shown that the smart device market continued to grow at pace last year, with more and more companies allowing people to bring their own smartphones and other hardware to work with them.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker, vendors shipped 367.7 million desktop PCs, portable PCs, tablets and smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2012.
The figures showed that the number of smart devices sipped in the last three-month period of 2012 went up 28.3 per cent when compared to the previous year.
As desktop PCs and portable PCs declined – by 4.1 and 3.4 per cent respectively – the overall smart connected device space surged to just over 1.2 billion shipments cumulatively last year.
Tablet figures experienced their largest year-on-year growth in 2012, increasing on the previous year by 78.4 per cent, while smartphones went up by 46.1 per cent.
Programme manager of the Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers division at IDC Ryan Reith said smartphones and tablets are growing at a pace that PCs cannot realistically keep up with because of device prices and their disposability.
"The average selling price (ASP) for a tablet declined 15 per cent in 2012 to $461 (£301) and we expect that trend to continue in 2013. However, smartphone APSs are still lower at $408.
"We expect smartphones to continue to carry a shorter life cycle than PCs for the years to come based on price, use case and overall device size."
These figures come shortly after Forrester’s 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends report noted that many people were interested in bringing in their own tablets to work.
For firms that do purchase new technology for employees, or are encouraging them to bring their own devices, it is very important that they implement data protection methods to ensure they can’t be targeted by hackers.
Dajon Data Management will be able to help with data security by carrying out a tailored assessment of company requirements and then implementing them with minimal disruption.