The launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note in November 2001 was met with a lot of criticism that a 5.3 inch screen device was too large to be carried around like a smartphone. However the skeptics were in fact proven wrong as Samsung sold about seven million Galaxy Note phablets in seven months. The Galaxy Note II did better as Samsung sold five million of these 5.5 inch units in just two months after its release in September 2012.
Today, 5 inch phablets have become an accepted norm and it comes to no surprise that the current flagship smartphone of giants like Samsung and Sony have 5 inch screens. Recent research studies show that 5 inch to 7 inch phablets amount to about 12% of the current market. However this is expected to grow to about 30% in 2018 and according to US research firm ABI Research 208 million phablets will be sold worldwide by the year 2015.
The above statistics somewhat contradict another study carried out by Flurry Analytics. According to this study, 72% of smartphone users prefer screen sizes between 3.5 inches and 4.9 inches and that only 3% of users actually use smartphones with displays that are 5 inches or greater in size. Even if Flurry is right in, one should see how things stand a few months from now. By that time there is no need to say that Samsung, Sony and the other smartphone giants would have sold dozens of millions of phablets like the Galaxy S4, Xperia Z and competing models.
