Tablets with voice calling prove to be big hit in phablet-loving Asian market: IDC

iCharts Tablets with voice calling function have been around since the first generation of Samsung tablets. But the surge in shipments over the last couple of quarters is pointing to a clear trend. A lot of vendors are putting the voice calling option on the tablet. According to IDC, the demand for voice-calling supported tablets is particularly high in emerging markets such as India and Indonesia. According to shipment numbers, almost 50 per cent share of all tablets sold in these regions have voice calling. “This shift highlights the sustained interest among consumers, at least in emerging markets, to have a single mobile device for all their needs – be it watching movies and soap operas, taking pictures, texting or making calls, even if the device has a huge 7-inch screen on it. It also helps that these devices are quite affordable, playing in the entry-to-mainstream price bands in most markets,” says Avinash K Sundaram, senior market analyst of Client Devices team at IDC Asia/Pacific. According to IDC, this growing trend is bound to carry on in the future, as it provides a good value proposition to the Asian users. Will the voice-calling enabled tablets save the dropping overall tablet sales? Only time will tell. In the meantime, get rid of that smirk on your face every time you see someone on the street using a tablet as a phone. You may see it far more often now.