European Small and Medium Businesses to Spend $10.6BN on Tablet Computing by 2016

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Spending on tablet devices and associated service plans by Western Europe’s 12 million+ SMBs (firms with 1 to 999 employees) will exceed $10BN by 2016. Spending on tablet devices during that period is set to grow at 30% CAGR from 2011. Shipments of tablet devices to SMBs will surpass those of other portable PCs during 2016, AMI-Partners soon to be released study 2012 Western Europe SMB Tablet Market Opportunity Overview reveals.

Tablet device penetration, running at 12% at the beginning of the year, will grow to 62% by 2016. 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% range.

“In the early stages Western Europe SMBs have been purchasing tablets predominantly for senior executives,” comments Hugh Gibbs, VP Research and Consulting for AMI in EMEA. “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.”

“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 continued. “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.”

The “BYOD” (bring-your-own-device) phenomenon along with other “consumerization of business IT” issues associated with the proliferation of mobile devices have presented SMBs (with very limited ICT management resources at their disposal) significant challenges. Signs are that, with the selection of tablet devices, Western European companies are now looking to bring this under better control.

Related Study

AMI’s soon to be released 2012 Western Europe SMB Tablet Market Opportunity Overview provides vendors with comprehensive analysis of the SMB tablet device, service plans and mobile application opportunity. The report soon to be available covers the following topics:

• The Western European SMB Tablet Device and Service Spend Sizing and Forecast (2011 to 2016)
• The SMB Tablet Using Company Profile
• Device Penetration by Vertical Sector
• Current and Planned Tablet Brand Preferences
• Brand Selection and Support Policies
• Tablet Feature and Device Purchase Criteria
• Mobile Application Usage (Current and Planned)
• Channel Usage

For more information about this study, AMI-Partners, or our global SMB research, call 212-944-5100, e-mail ask_ami@ami-partners.com or visit www.ami-partners.com.

About Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

AMI-Partners specializes in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence — with a strong focus on global small and medium businesses (SMBs), extending into large enterprises and home-based businesses. The AMI-Partners mission is to empower clients for success with the highest quality data, business strategy perspectives and go-to-market solutions. Led by Andy Bose, the firm has built a world-class management team with deep experience cutting across IT, telecommunications and business services sectors in established and emerging markets.

AMI has helped shape the go-to-market SMB strategies of more than 150 leading IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services companies. The firm is well known for its IT and Internet adoption-based segmentation of the SMB markets; its annual retainership services based on global SMB tracking surveys in more than 25 countries; and its proprietary database of SMBs and SMB channel partners in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The firm invests significantly in collecting survey-based information from several thousand SMBs annually, and is considered the premier source for global SMB trends and analysis.