Half of Britons now using a tablet The number of smaller, cheaper tablets in circulation will overtake that of larger ones in the new year, despite the smaller devices only shooting to prominence in 2012, according to Paul Lee, Deloitte's head of technology, media and telecoms research. He said the base of "compact tablets" - those with screens smaller than 8.5 inches corner-to-corner - would reach 165m worldwide by the end of March, against 160m for larger devices. Their ascent comes at the expense of more pricey personal computers and less versatile portable games consoles, according to the research. "Tablets have gained popularity with extraordinary speed, and manufacturers will have to work hard to stay on top of the evolution of the market," Mr Lee said. There appear to be more users and use cases for tablets than many had imagined. Getting the balance of form, function and price right will likely be a moving target during 2014, especially at the lower end of the market," he added. Deloitte said online retailers and advertisers would have to adapt to the shift to compact tablets, since many websites do not display as well on smaller screens as on their larger counterparts. According to IBM, tablet computers accounted for 28pc of all online retail traffic on Boxing Day.