Study Shows Government Use of Smartphones and Tablets to Increase

It looks like Uncle Sam is just as fond of his tablet as the rest of us.

A new study from IDC Government Insights found that tablets and smartphones are more popular than ever for government use, and the number of smart devices being utilized by all levels of government employees is expected to continue to rise in the next five years. According to IDC, the use of tablets within the government will experience double-digit growth through 2016, in addition to increases in wireless data services.

“The mobile market in government is quite healthy,” said Shawn McCarthy, Research Director at IDC Government Insights in a prepared statement. “Smartphones and services lead this sector, but the demand for tablet computers is ramping up, and we expect double-digit growth in tablet spending to reach the local levels of government in a big way by 2017.”

The study found that overall tablet computer usage and wireless data usage will continue to rise mainly because of employee and citizen demand. And with reports of smartphones, tablets and eReaders making up only 5 percent of the government IT market, IDC beliees there is significant room for growth before demand begins to settle down in 2016. Overall tablet usage and connectivity is also expected to grow in local government, while airless voice traffic will decline in all sectors.

This year and next are expected to be the highest growth years overall for the already wildly successful smartphone and tablet industry across the board, which corroborates with findings from last week’s NDP DisplaySearch report, which claimed that 75 percent of PCs will be tablets as of 2017.

Its no surprise that government employees have taken notice of the benefits of incorporating their smart devices into their work, what with recent advances in mobility and the ever-growing bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement in the IT field. To capitalize on the growing demand for mobility within the government, IDC also said that vendors should be open to offering hosted versions of their applications so that agencies can choose from a variety of ownership and subscription services.