Research firm eMarketer has added up some numbers and divided by its shoe size and worked out that by the ned of the year more than half of the UK population will be regularly using tablet computers in 2015. This is up from a third in 2013.

However that growth is set to slow “dramatically” and that by 2019, eMarketer expects those figures to have risen to 40.2 million people: 59.8 per cent of the population and 73.6 per cent of internet users.

“The country’s tablet market is reaching a point in its maturity curve that signals a slowdown in user growth,” said analyst Bill Fisher. “Such a slowdown in the rate of penetration suggests that most of those who want a tablet likely already have one, with more sales than ever likely to be replacements.”

eMarketer also expects Apple’s iPad to account for 16.7 million of in-use tablets for the UK in 2015, giving it a 51 per cent market share. It predicts that this will fall to 44.9 per cent by 2019 due to continued competition from companies including Samsung and Amazon.

eMarketer's predictions for tablet usage in the UK. eMarketer’s predictions for tablet usage in the UK.
Even so, that’s a shift from the same firm’s prediction in April 2014 that iPad would account for 49 per cent of British tablet users in 2014, falling to 46 per cent in 2015.

The number sounds quite high given that few people seem to be using them any more.