Phablets The Fastest Growing Form Factor

Phablets are essentially big phones… but they’re close enough in size to tablets to be considered a form factor of their very own. to date, the emerging phablet trend has been considered somewhat of a gimmick, however according to some new facts and figures from an analytic company called Flurry, the devices are one of the biggest growing areas of technology right now.

Growth of phablets has been pretty huge – with devices of the type growing in usage by 148 percent – and even large tablets have seen a drop in usage, down 20 percent with smaller tablets rowing by 14 percent. It seems as if a smaller, more manageable device is better, according to users. Plus, smaller devices are a good bit cheaper whilst still matching up in terms of performance.

As you can see from the chart, medium sized phones have also seen growth. In general everything seems to be moving towards a medium focal point in terms of screen size for mobile devices. If it’s portable but with a good sized screen, it’s bound to be popular.

SEE ALSO: Google Confirms Android Pay Feature

Flurry also released some stats on the kid of stuff phablet users view and consume when using the devices. in the categories of sports, news and magazines and music media and entertainment, it’s clear to see that phablets are a big area for consumption of these media types.

Looking closely at the chart above, you can see from the dotted line figures just how much more phablets were used than other deice types. For example, an 158% increase in sports media consumed on tablets was 427% bigger than just 30% growth by other devices.

With the Galaxy Note and Nexus ranges from Samsung and Google, plus the iPhone 6 Plus all hitting the market in a big way, it’s a medium size device revolution from some of the biggest manufacturers on the scene.

SEE ALSO: Apple’s Various Vehicle Plans Spotted

The last word from flurry on phablet usage is that it might be a big of a disappointment for websites for mobiles – apps are often better optimized for medium size devices, so users of mobile optimized versions of websites through mobile web browsers are dropping, as just 12 percent of the time users spend on a mobile device is using mobile internet. The other 88 percent is used on mobile apps.

Apps are generally on the rise anyway, it’s so much more simple to create a dedicated app rather than optimize a complicated website for mobile usage, so no wonder apps are the dominant way to get through to the big services. Of course, the growing users Phablets can only benefit from more apps being made available.

Source: Flurry

Via: Techspot