The PC market in Thailand is forecast to grow by at least 10 per cent to 4.5 million units next year, which will be a transitional period from non-touch to touch-screen devices.

Touch devices are then expected to account for the majority of the market in 2014, according to Intel Microelectronics (Thailand).

Country manager Accharas Ouysinprasert said the one limitation to touch-device adoption would be the capacity of touch-panel manufacturers to meet demand. That said, the touch feature will be in almost all new computing devices from entry level through to high-end products.

"Touch features are the new norm for computing devices. There will be 40 designs of such devices launched by next July. On average, the price gap between touch devices and non-touch devices, with the same specification, is around Bt2,000 to Bt3,000," he said.

Next year, the five "form" devices in Thailand will be notebooks without touch, notebooks with touch, ultrabooks without touch, convertible ultrabooks and tablets.

"Convertible ultrabooks with a touch feature will play an important role in the PC market next year. These and tablets are the big areas of focus for Intel in the next year," Accharas said, adding that tablets, convertibles and new devices will enter the market en masse, blurring the boundaries between PCs and tablets.

Meanwhile, Intel expects the PC market in Thailand this year to reach 4.1 million units, instead of the previously forecast 4.4 million to 4.5 million. This represents a 5-per-cent increase over the number sold last year.

Ultrabooks account for 3 per cent of the notebook market.

The tablet market in Thailand this year is expected to be 2 million units, with 65 per cent in the consumer segment, 12 per cent in the enterprise segment and 8 to 10 per cent in the education and government sectors. The tablet market will be at least 3 million units next year.

According to Gartner, by 2015 media tablet shipments worldwide will amount to around half the level for laptops.

"We are moving into the 'perceptual' computing era, led by touch features. Apart from touch screens, next year we will see more technologies built into computing devices, including voice, gesture, facial recognition, wireless charging and augmented reality," said Accharas.

Apart from perceptual computing, the technology trend for next year is still cloud computing, big data, consumerisation and mobile computing, he added.

Cloud computing is gaining momentum in the Asia-Pacific, according to an IDG survey.

Around 31 per cent of IT decision-makers in Asia plan to implement cloud environments in the next 12 months, 26 per cent look to pilot-test cloud projects, and 28 per cent have implemented cloud in one or more location, the company said.