According to new figures from IDC, which reinforce previous reports from the analyst firm (and indeed other bean counters), 2-in-1 notebooks are going to represent a large chunk of the European PC market in just over a few years' time.
IDC's Western Europe Quarterly Tablet Tracker estimates that by the year 2020, detachable tablets (2-in-1 convertibles) will represent 20% of all PCs shipped in the year 2020 compared to 5% last year.
Demand will be fuelled by increased competition as more vendors produce these sort of machines, which will put downward pressure on prices, and as a result these devices will look more and more tempting to businesses and consumers alike.
Reinforcing mobility
Windows 10 will also "reinforce mobility" in IDCs words, boosting the adoption of 2-in-1s and ultra-slim devices. Taken together, convertibles, all-in-ones and ultra-slim notebooks will rise to encompass 47% of PC shipments come the year 2020 (up from 29% last year).
Detachables will drive growth in the overall tablet market, the analyst firm concludes, but vanilla slates themselves will slump.
Marta Fiorentini, research manager, IDC EMEA Personal Computing, commented: "Over the last few quarters, a large number of new ODM detachable designs have been announced, most of which run Windows 10 and based on a new generation of more powerful processors.
"These two key features will allow vendors to target consumers, who still prefer a keyboard for basic productivity or content creation tasks and will now be able to benefit from an improved mobile experience, as well as professional users looking for powerful machines to replace their notebooks.
"We are already seeing adoption gaining traction among more senior and mobile workforce ranks in some European companies and we expect this trend to accelerate as companies upgrade to Windows 10."
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