Tablet sale to surpass those of laptops, notebooks by end of 2013 FRAMINGHAM, Mass., May 28 (UPI) -- Tablet computers will dominate the mobile PC market by the end of this year and could top the entire PC market by the year 2015, a U.S. tech research firm says. "Tablets surpassing portables in 2013, and total PCs in 2015, marks a significant change in consumer attitudes about compute devices and the applications and ecosystems that power them," Ryan Reith, program manager for IDC's Mobility Trackers, said. "IDC continues to believe that PCs will have an important role in this new era of computing, especially among business users," he said. But for many consumers, a tablet is a simple and elegant solution for core use cases that were previously addressed by the PC. IDC estimated tablet shipments would grow 58.7 percent year-over-year in 2013, reaching 229.3 million units worldwide, Slash Gear reported Tuesday. The growth in tablet sales in being driven in large part by a drop in prices, IDC said, with the worldwide average selling price for tablets expected to drop this year to $381, a 10 percent decrease from 2012.