Stefan Mileschin

Hybrid devices look set to be the fastest growing segment of the mobile PC market this year.

Gartner is predicting that 21.5 million hybrid devices will ship this year, a rise of 70 percent compared to last year, and accounting for 12 percent of total sales of notebook PCs in 2015.

Of those hybrid devices, eight million are predicted to be ultramobile tablets – that’s “two-in-one” tablets and 13.5 million will be “two-in-one” ad convertible ultramobiles.

But it’s difficult for IT departments to choose hybrid ultramobiles because the PC base predominantly uses Windows 7, and legacy applications don’t use touch. Tracy Tsai, a research director at Gartner, believes this might change when Windows 10 becomes popular in businesses.

The leading vendor supplying hybrid devices is Lenovo, which has 41 percent market share, while Asus and HP are also contenders. But so too is Microsoft, which held a 36 percent market share last year, said Tsai.

http://www.techeye.net/laptops-2/hyb...shipments-soar