The holiday season will be great for pads and tablets, but not so great for smartphones, says Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson.
Overall, Mark doesn’t think 2013 will end with high sales figures for technology, but there will be a few exceptions.
On the positive side, the fourth quarter should be great for pad and tablet sales, especially Apple’s new iPad.
On the down side, smartphones were hot in previous years, but Mark sees a slowdown. Consumers are being careful with their money, and a lot of people won’t want to deal with new phone contracts and upgrade fees this year.
What about the venerable PC?
On the consumer side, smartphones and tablets continue to gobble up PC territory. Windows 8 was the big hope for increased PC sales, but so far it doesn’t seem to be a stimulus.
Mark expects more action on the enterprise side, with governments and businesses upgrading computers as the year comes to a close.
Who will benefit the most this quarter?
Mark thinks Amazon will be the big winner.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has been making big investments in recent quarters, and Mark expects them to pay off handsomely this holiday season.