PUBLISHER: VDC Research Group, Inc. | PRODUCT CODE: 1340147
PUBLISHER: VDC Research Group, Inc. | PRODUCT CODE: 1340147
This report covers the overall market opportunity for rugged slate tablets and 2-in-1 devices used to support mobile enterprise and government line of business (LoB) applications. Specifically, this report primarily focuses on the enterprise LoB and industry-specific subset of the overall tablet and 2-in-1 opportunity. For this subset, examples of end users whose applications often rely on tablets include factory workers, warehouse workers, field service technicians, police officers, EMTs, firefighters, nurses/clinicians, flight-line aircraft personnel, soldiers, and many others. This report includes market sizing and forecasts for rugged devices. It also breaks down market opportunity for tablets by region and industry. Additionally, this report analyzes current trends driving investments in tablets and 2-in-1 devices while providing future outlook and insights for mobile hardware vendors.
The target audience for this report is decision makers within marketing, product development, and sales/business development roles at mobile hardware OEMs as well as system integrators, value-added resellers, and distributors. In addition, end users within enterprise mobility purchasing, specification, and/or support responsibilities would benefit from reading this report.
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Enterprises across all industries, as well as government agencies, realized the value gained by digitalization to increase operational efficiencies and stay in-line with competitors. Rugged tablets were a key component in these efforts as they provide greater visibility into operations and workers do more with less. The capabilities of rugged tablets enabled by connectivity advancements and OEM developments have enabled greater utility of these devices for new use cases such as real-time monitoring/streaming, remote control, scanning, measuring, and reliable communication. Increasing inflation and global economic uncertainty has inevitably caused the outlook of the rugged tablet market to be dampened over the 5-year forecast from 2022 to 2027. Although rugged tablets OEMs are constantly looking to find new opportunities and differentiate themselves through new partnerships and product developments.
Note: VDC Research has defined 2-in-1 detachable devices as tablets that can be attached to a keyboard to create a laptop-experience. For the device to fit into this category, the keyboard must be manufactured by the same OEM as the tablet and packaged together. Tablets fitted with 3rd party keyboards do not fit into this category. VDC categorizes which OEM devices are considered 2-in-1 detachable devices.
The rugged 2-in-1 detachable device market reached $606.3 million in 2022.
The Americas was the largest regional market for rugged slate tablets and 2-in-1 detachable devices in 2022. Over the 5-year forecast period, the APAC region will grow the fastest in this market.
The fully rugged slate tablet and 2-in-1 detachable markets are Windows-dominant. The release of Windows 11 and the development of Windows devices on ARM provide new opportunities for the platform as Android looks to spread across industries.
The semi-rugged tablet market, led by Samsung's Tab Active product line is majority Android-based. An increased number of Android devices, many of which are 10" in display are being released as support for enterprise applications on Android tablets increases interest and demand for the platform across industry.
The most demanded display size across all verticals in the rugged tablet market continues to be 10" and 12". This display range offers the ideal form-factor for portability and conducting data capture and reporting workflows in the field. Vehicle-mounted tablets and 2-in-1 detachable devices in field service and public safety agencies usually range above 11", while vehicle-mounted devices in transportation and delivery use cases tend fall below 10".
The continued development of 5G and private wireless technologies is driving the opportunity for WAN activation in rugged tablets, offering greater performance, coverage, and security for devices.
The emergence of Wi-Fi 6e in the enterprise, with greater throughput and capacity may curb some of the growth of WAN-activated devices within the four walls, as Wi-Fi only devices are significantly lower-priced relative to WAN-activated devices. However, as enterprises look to expand connectivity to their outdoor operational environments, cellular-enabled devices will become necessary.
Vehicles from police cruisers, firetrucks and ambulances to semi-trucks, bucket trucks and forklifts deploy mounted tablets to assist with communication, navigation, data capture and reporting workflows. Most 2-in-1 detachable devices (55%) are vehicle-mounted as keyboard-centric use cases help turn vehicles into mobile offices for public safety and field service workers.
The primary route to market for rugged tablet OEMs is through their partner channel ecosystem, relying on value-added resellers (VARs), distributors, and ISVs to reach customers across different regions and industries. These partners also add differentiating features to OEM tablet solutions, including accessories that integrate data capturing or measuring equipment to rugged tablets for specific use cases. Alternatively, some tablet OEMs may have their own accessory portfolio to target specific markets.
ISVs and managed service providers are becoming primary partner targets for rugged tablet OEMs, as software and device fleet management become differentiating factors to enterprises. These partners will integrate specialized software solutions and management platforms into tablet devices. Some tablet OEMs develop their own software to differentiate solutions, usually a mobile device management or enterprise mobility management system.
Rowan is a market research professional within VDC's Enterprise Mobility and AutoID practice. With a passionate interest for the technology industry, Rowan brings skills in economic analysis and industry research to VDC. Rowan holds a B.A. in International Studies with a concentration in Economics from Boston College.
David has more than ten years experience covering the markets for enterprise and government mobility solutions, wireless data communication technologies and automatic data-capture research and consulting. David focuses on identifying the key drivers and enablers in the adoption of mobile and wireless solutions among mobile workers in the extended enterprise. David's consulting and strategic advisory experience is far reaching and includes technology and market opportunity assessments, technology penetration and adoption enablers, partner profiling and development, new product development and M&A due diligence support. David has extensive primary market research management and execution experience to support market sizing and forecasting, total cost of ownership (TCO), comparative product performance evaluation, competitive benchmarking and end user requirements analysis. David is a graduate of Boston University (BSBA).