Phablet shipments will hit 1.5 billion in 2019

Writing for Business Insider, Tony Danova notes that the phablets — defined as a smartphone with a screen between 5-inches and 7-inches — will surpass 1.5 billion shipments by 2019. With that, the devices will soon account for 59% of total global smartphone shipments, up from an expected 35% in 2014. As a result, it is believed phablets will outnumber tablet sales three to one over the next five years.

According to a new report from BI Intelligence, the market has been migrating towards phablets over the past few quarters, and that shift is expected to continue as phablets become the go-to smartphone form factor. “While this is a broad definition,” Danova notes, the advantage is that it captures one of the most important trends in the smartphone market in the last couple of years — the phenomenal popularity of devices such as the Samsung Galaxy line.

As the emerging trend continues to favor larger device screens, phablets are expected to remain the fastest-growig smartphone category through 2019, growing at a CAGR of 27%, nearly double the 15% compound rate for the smartphone market over the same period. Phablets have also accelerated the trend of consumer time spent on visually-oriented social media and messaging apps, with the report revealing that more than half of activity on phablets is tied to social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

Cognizant of this trend, Atmel recently expanded its popular maXTouch T lineup of touchscreen controllers with the mXT640T, mXT336T and mXT224T. The new devices offer a comprehensive set of features, supporting next-gen mobile devices such as smartphones, phablets and mid-size tablets with touchscreens ranging from 3.2”-8.3.” With 640 nodes, the mXT64xT series of devices are the world’s most comprehensive capacitive touchscreen controllers designed for next-generation smartphones. The mXT640T supports screen sizes up to 6.2″ with a 1.0 mm passive stylus, up to 5.0 mm thick multi-finger glove sensing, and superior moisture touch performance, while also supports up to 7″ for Windows® 8 compliant devices, and up to 8″ for Android smartphones, phablets and tablets.

“The new T Series enables superior touch performance with single-layer sensors as compared to the most recently announced solutions. Simply put, the latest devices will enable Atmel to extend its industry leadership in the large-screen market to the smartphone and phablet spaces,” an Atmel engineering rep recently explained.