Phablets Are Officially A Thing, With 20M Shipped In 2013

God help us. Phablets are officially a thing.

According to Juniper Research, phablets are expected to hit 120 million units shipped by 2018, up from the estimated 20 million phablets shipped last year (2013).

Samsung validated the trend with the super-sized Galaxy Note series, which has gone on to be surprisingly successful for the Korean electronics giant.

The growth in the space is obvious when you look at Samsung’s numbers.

With the first Galaxy Note, launched in late 2011, the company sold 2 million units in the first four months. Samsung’s most recent iteration of the device, the Galaxy Note 3, sold 5 million units in a week.

But Samsung isn’t the only company to push out giant phones. LG recently released the G Flex, with a giant, curved display, Nokia has the Lumia 1520 running Windows 8, and HTC has the One Max (to name a few).

Apple, on the other hand, doesn’t have a phablet per se. However, as phablets have grown in popularity, Apple has made slight changes to its products to accommodate these growing trends, such as the release of the iPad mini and the extension of the iPhone screen from 3.5 inches to 4-inches.

The term “phablets” rose to prominence over the past two years, connoting a tablet-smartphone hybrid. Juniper believes that the screen must be 5.6 inches to meet phablet requirements.

So we now know that phablets are here to stay. But riddle me this: Is “phablet” too popular a term to swap it out for “tablone?”