While the tablet market continued to shrink in Q2, the rate of its recession has slowed according to the latest shipment data from IDC. Some manufacturers also managed to increase their market share.
In a press release published Thursday, the International Data Corporation revealed that the decline in tablet shipments we’ve been seeing since 2016 has slowed down. While IDC data for Q1 showed an 8.5% decline, the Q2 data shows a decline of only 3.4%.
Meanwhile, in terms of market share; the top five remain the same with Apple leading the pack and Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo following at a sizeable distance.
As shown in the above table, compared to last year, Apple, Huawei, and Amazon have increased their shipments whilst Samsung has kept shipments steadily at six million as opposed to Lenovo who have had a drop in shipments. While Apple and Lenovo have lost 5.3% and 0.8% respectively, Samsung, Huawei, and Amazon saw slowly increasing market share as well.
However, when these stats are compared to the first quarter of 2017, the top five companies except Samsung have seen their shipments grow, while Samsung maintained the same figure. IDC pins this growth primarily on the influx of low-cost tablets from all manufacturers.
IDC further comments that even though the 2-in-1 market has to date been bifurcated into detachables and convertibles, with Apple and Microsoft leading the former category and PC makers leading the latter, the smartphone makers and PC makers are very slowly carving into detachables with great offerings .
With new product launches late in Q2, Windows coming to ARM and an expected update to iOS, IDC predicts that there are good hopes for the second half of 2017. However, they note that these gains may be temporary as the tablet life cycle is very much akin to the classic PC rather than the smartphone, and first-time buyers are quickly becoming a rarity.
Source: IDC
