International Data Corporation (IDC) has lowered its forecast for the global shipments of tablets to 233.1 million units in 2014. The new 6.5 per cent growth rate is significantly lower than the previous forecast of 12.1 per cent.

According to the report, the IDC expects tablet shipments in mature markets like Western Europe and North America to remain flat, while shipments in other markets are expected to grow 12 per cent over the same period.

“When we look at the global picture, it would be easy to say that the tablet market is slowing down,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director for tablets at IDC.

“But, when we start digging into the regional dynamics, we realize that there is still a good appetite for this product category.”

While the average selling price (ASP) of tablets is expected to remain firm at $373 in mature markets, other parts of the world will see the ASP drop to $302, which is an annual drop of 10 per cent, noted IDC.

“Driven primarily by small devices, we expect the rest of the world to account for the majority of shipments in the years to come,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst at IDC.

In terms of dollars spent, however, he expects medium- to large-sized devices in Western Europe and North America to produce significant revenue.

Meanwhile, IDC expects worldwide shipments of PCs to fall by 3.7 per cent instead of the previous forecast of 6 per cent, with the growth in shipments of laptops and desktop computers in mature markets offsetting the drop in demand in emerging markets such as the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.