When the first tablet-phones (popularly known as phablets) were introduced in late 2010 and early 2011, many people wrote them off. The tide seems to have turned in favor of phablets now with Samsung announcing recently that it sold 5 million units of Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 within first 5 months of its release. That’s a resounding turnaround.

The ‘phablet’ market is growing so rapidly that ABI Research has forecasted a tremendous 208 million units annual sales threshold by 2015. The exponential rise of phablets has begun with the release of Samsung i9300 Galaxy S III 16GB (S3) three weeks ago, as it has already surpassed 9 million pre-orders around the world.

ABI Research defines phablets as phones featuring a touchscreen falling between the range of 4.6-inch to 5.5-inch. Recently released high profile phones fulfilling this criterion include the super powerful Quad-core phone HTC One X and Google’s Galaxy Nexus.

Phablets or tablet-phones are becoming exceedingly popular because with faster processors and powerful GPUs, they provide seamless internet browsing, make it extremely easy to read and reply to emails and offer great video streaming with convenient screen navigation. ABI Research also reports that popular manufacturers HTC, LG and Sony are coming up with new phablet models later this year, which is probably a very smart thing to do given the growing prominence of these devices.

Source: Engadget | ABIresearch