Worldwide, tablet users will pass 1 billion this year, according to a study by research firm eMarketer. What the research does not make clear is the exact role that the meteoric rise of smartphones has on tablet adoption.

According to eMarketer, the number will continue to grow significantly:

More than 1 billion people worldwide will use a tablet in 2015, representing nearly 15% of the global population and more than double the number three years ago. By 2018, the number of tablet users in the world will reach 1.43 billion.

For manufacturers and marketers of the PC replacement, not all the forecast is good:

This is the first time eMarketer has made projections for the number of tablet users worldwide. The key takeaway is that growth in the global tablet-using population will slow dramatically in 2015 and continue to taper off. The total number of tablet users is expected to increase by 17.1% this year. While this figure is healthy, it pales in comparison with year-over-year gains of 54.1% in 2013 and 29.1% in 2014. By 2018, the growth rate for new tablet users worldwide will be just 7.9%.

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Given its population of over 1.3 billion and the rapid emergence of its middle class, the leader in tablet ownership should not be a shock:

China will be the world leader in terms of tablet users in 2015, with more than 328 million residents accessing these devices at least once per month — nearly one-third of the world’s total. The US is a distant second, with fewer than half the number China has. Here are four other key facts in each of the next four years in eMarketer’s forecast for tablet users worldwide

While the research firm does point to several consumer electronics devices that compete with tablets, it does not go so far as to identify smartphones as the primary competition.

Tablets face increased competition from smartphones and a widening array of connected devices, including phablets, wearables, connected TVs and dedicated gaming devices, particularly in late-adopting countries like Japan and South Korea.

However, as the smartphone becomes the device of choice for people who use it for multimedia, a means to connect to social networks, a way to access to the Web, play games, run millions of apps and utilize older features that include texting and voice communications, it has the opportunity to be the primary replacement of all other consumer electronics devices. Global availability of 4G will only help the trend. An eMarketer study from late last year remarks on this trend:

Consumers around the world are rushing into the embrace of the smartphone market, according to new figures from eMarketer on mobile usage worldwide. By the end of 2014, we expect 1.76 billion people to own and use smartphones monthly, up more than 25% over 2013.

Just under one-quarter of the world’s total population will use smartphones this year — and by 2017, more than one-third of all people around the globe will be smartphone users. eMarketer’s estimates for smartphone users account for the number of individuals who own and use smartphones, regardless of the number of smartphones each of those individuals might have.

The slowing in tablet sales is because another device is viewed by consumers as even better.

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