Is the tablet banking honeymoon over?

Only a couple years ago, as mobile banking was growing rapidly, and the conversation around development strategies was at its height, tablets played a prominent role in channel strategies at the largest and most digitally mature institutions. The consumer interest in tablets over the last year or two, however, has plateaued—even waned. Tablet is nowhere near dead, but sales have started to level off. According to ABI Research, tablet sales experienced a 19% YoY decline in growth from 2014-2015. There are a few reasons for this:

• Tablets have low replacement cycles: Tablets aren´t being recycled at nearly the rate of phones. Partially this has to do with wear and tear—tablets typically sit at home, aren´t charged as often, and aren´t dropped nearly as much—but likely a bigger reason is the lack of major advancements in hardware. There simply hasn't been a new tablet feature in the last couple years for which consumers are choosing to shell out another $400-600 (or more).
• Phablets have taken over as the preferred device: consumers are increasingly going for phones that can provide the screen space of a tablet with the mobility of a smartphone. Phones have been steadily growing in size to meet this need. Phablets can provide the processing power to accommodate the needs of consumers for less.
• Tablets haven´t carved out a distinct enough use case: It´s still unclear to what extent tablets are devices of leisure, business, lifestyle, etc. There´s the Surface 4 and others that are starting to seriously go after the laptop market with a full operating system and keyboard, but the best-selling tablets on amazon are all those with small screens and cheap price tags.

Celent´s discussions with banks have largely echoed this change, moving to a broader understanding of digital strategy and what it means to be “mobile.” It´s not that tablets aren´t important—far from it—but banks have limited resources dedicated to digital channels, and institutions should be thinking about prioritizing development where the opportunity is highest. A recent Celent report on digital transformation showed that more than 65% of banks cite resources and availability as a barrier to digital maturity. So what’s a financial institution to make of all this?

1. Use responsive design: A bank may have been able to manage native apps when there were only a handful of devices, but that´s no longer the case. Responsive design has evolved to the point of being able to provide the same look and feel through an experience automatically tailored to the user´s device.
2. Think about the consumer-facing branch tablet: This could be roaming personnel in the branch, tablet-like ATMs and kiosks, or as a way to streamline the on-boarding process. The characteristics of tablet interfaces should influence design in other channels.
3. Design the right app if large tablets are going to continue to be a priority: As the form and function of smartphones and tablets begin to move closer together, institutions will have to reassess where the full tablet experience sits within its strategic digital priorities. The consumer-facing tablet experience may need to reflect the evolving use case.

Celent will continue to discuss the role of tablets in financial services going forward, but the conversation around mobile banking will reflect the larger digital channels picture, rather than tablet vs smartphone vs. online banking. We feel this is more in line with the way the market is moving.