Annual growth in the tablet market will slow to single digit percentages by 2017, peaking at 383.3 million units rather than the 407 million units previously forecast, according to research house IDC.

According to the company, shipments in 2013 will reach 221.3 million units, down slightly from a previous forecast of 227.4 million, but still 53.5 per cent above 2012 levels. Shipment growth will slow to 22.2 per cent year-on-year to reach 270.5 million units.

IDC said that one key factor to watch is the shift between large screen tablets and smaller screen devices. It said that the market “has trended toward small tablets in a big way over the last 24 months”.

But the growth of large screen phones could push customers back toward bigger tablets – “the difference between a 6-inch smartphone and a 7-inch tablet isn’t great enough to warrant purchasing both”, it said.

The launch of Apple’s thinner, lighter iPad Air could also drive customers back toward larger screens – presuming customers are willing to pay extra.

“In some markets consumers are already making the choice to buy a large smartphone rather than buying a small tablet, and as a result we’ve lowered our long-term forecast. Meanwhile, in mature markets like the U.S. where tablets have been shipping in large volumes since 2010 and are already well established, we’re less concerned about big phones cannibalising shipments and more worried about market saturation,” said Tom Mainelli, research director of IDC’s Tablets division.

The shift back to larger devices could be a positive for Microsoft’s Windows platform, although these devices are not expected to steal share from tablets running iOS and Android until the latter part of the forecast.