Infotech Lead Europe: SMB’s spending on tablet devices and service plans in Western Europe will exceed $10 billion by 2016.
This is a significant development for Apple, Dell and Acer.
Western Europe has more than 12 million SMBs.
Spending on tablet devices during that period is set to grow at 30 percent CAGR from 2011.
Shipments of tablet devices to SMBs will surpass those of other portable PCs during 2016.
Tablet device penetration will grow to 62 percent by 2016 from 12 percent at present.
The manufacturing and professional services sectors are currently leading the charge. Apple dominates the SMB tablet using market in Western Europe with around half of these firms using some version of i-Pad. The closest challengers are Dell and Acer in the 10 percent range.
“In the early stages Western Europe SMBs have been purchasing tablets predominantly for senior executives. We are now seeing usage extended to a wider variety of internal job functions as these SMBs look to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their on-the-road workforces,” said Hugh Gibbs, VP Research and Consulting for AMI in EMEA.
“Mobile application usage in its early phases has quite naturally focused on allowing employees to communicate and collaborate while outside the office. What our research is now showing is a marked shift in interest to deploying more sophisticated business and process management applications,” Gibbs added.
The fast-spreading tablet device has been a core contributor to this as it proves a much more effective medium for access to back office company information. IT and field service management, product availability, CRM and staff management have been the leading applications SMBs have been looking to implement.
