Stick PC: Key market research findings
- Low-cost advantage of stick PCs drives market growth
- Ongoing integration of stick PCs with processors and memory chips
- Key vendors – ASUS, Intel, Lenovo, MagicStick, iBall, and ARCHOS
Our industry experts predict the global market for stick PCs to grow at a CAGR of around 7% between 2016 and 2020. The low-cost advantage of stick PCs is driving their increased adoption across the globe. Stick PCs allow the user to carry a computer that can be used to access data on devices such as TVs having HDMI ports and laptops. Stick PCs can also be used with projectors and interactive flat panels. During 2015, the global stick PC market was dominated by the APAC region with a market share of around 37%. The market in this region will showcase further growth during the forecast period owing to factors such as increased product awareness and greater broadband penetration.
The new industry research report from Technavio discusses in detail the key drivers and trends responsible for the growth of this market and its sub-segments.
“Lately, stick PCs are being integrated with processors and memory chips that have been scaled down for optimum performance. As of 2016, stick PCs are integrated with embedded multimedia card negative NAND (eMMC NAND) flash storage ranging from 16GB-32GB, but vendors are planning to integrate high memory storage NAND chips in their devices. It is expected that the memory storage in stick PCs that will be shipped in 2017 will have internal memory storage capacity of up to 250GB. All these developments are possible due to the reducing node size of memory ICs from the semiconductor manufacturers,” says Ishmeet Kaur, Lead Analyst, ICT, Technavio Research.
Stick PCs can be beneficial for a wide range of applications, ranging from consumer-based applications to medical and industrial applications. The current target market of stick PCs are workgroups and non-working individuals, but can also be used for applications such as gaming, entertainment, education, medical, and enterprise. Furthermore, stick PCs can be beneficial in content management, content creation, and content delivery.
The key vendors in the global stick PC market include ASUS, Intel, Lenovo, MagicStick, iBall, and ARCHOS. Emerging stick PC brands are opting for Intel processors, but established brands such as Google are introducing stick PCs with Rockchip processors. These variations are meant to promote their products and strengthen their foothold in the market. However, given the limitations of stick PCs, our analysts expect their demand to be slower than expected. Multiple outcomes can be expected in the market. One of the outcomes will be vendors withdrawing from the market, and the other will be vendors focusing on alternative target markets such as education and gaming. This is a very early stage to predict the competition and trends in market consolidation due to the presence of fewer well-established brands. However, we can expect major PC manufacturers to enter the market and drive the development of advanced stick PCs in the future. This, in turn, will fuel the demand from customers. The increase in the volume of stick PCs will help vendors lower their cost of production and also integrate technologically advanced components such as high-density NAND, LPDDR4 RAM, and SoC to enhance value proposition.
A more detailed analysis is available in the Technavio report, Global Stick PC Market 2016-2020.
We can customize reports by other regions and specific segments upon request.
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