Canadians who already own a tablet computer are expected to buy another one and some small households will have more tablets than people, says Deloitte Canada's annual report on technology trends.
Deloitte Canada's 2012 study says almost five per cent of tablet sales this year will be made to households that already own one, just a few years after they came on the market. It took more than 10 years before five per cent of homes had more than one computer or cellphone, he said.
"Our prediction is that a number of Canadians who have tablets will be buying a second tablet," said Duncan Stewart, director of research and co-author of 2012's trends report.
"In Canada, we have more PCs than people," he said of personal computers. "We are on that trend in tablets, but we're not there (yet)."
Stewart said there are roughly 1.2 computers for every person in Canada, which has a population of 34.5 million.
Apple's iPad has dominated the tablet market since its debut two years ago, sparking consumer interest in the devices.
Consumers use tablets — which usually have touch screens and no physical keyboard — for various tasks ranging from reading, to accessing the Internet or watching television programs already broadcast.
Stewart said morning commuters will use their tablets this year to catch up on TV programs they missed the night before, using them like a digital video recorder.
Tablets will also be used for work, too, with more and more businesses using them, he added.
The Deloitte study says tech devices like tablets, smartphones, computers and TVs will defy gloomy economic predictions and continue to sell in strong numbers.
It's about "bang for your buck," Stewart said, noting that prices for these consumer electronics have come down and have many functions.
The study also predicts that more smartphones will include technology that lets consumers pay for their purchases, use them as digital business cards to exchange information, access buildings or unlock cars. The technology is called Near Field Communications.
This year, there will be about 200 million smartphones worldwide enabled with this technology, he said.
"Given that we always carry our phones with us, the ability to put functionality on them is something that's going to be really cool."
Stewart is also predicting that Canada's data caps for wireline Internet subscriptions will be followed by Internet service providers in other countries.
"As a result of result of network congestion, we believe that over 100 million households around the world will, in fact, move from all-you-can-eat wireline plans to some form of data cap."
Last year, Stewart predicted that consumers, globally, would buy more smartphones and tablets than personal computers.
He said 425 million smartphones and tablets were sold versus 375 million personal computers in 2011.