Tablets haven’t had the best of time last year and the overall market continues to decline as IDC now reports that the worldwide tablet market has reduced by about 8.5 percent with the total shipments measuring at 36.2 million in Q1 2017. The important thing to note here is the two categories which IDC considers while coming out to these figures. The detachable which offers a first party keyboard have shown a growth over time and will continue to hike up in terms of shipments. On the other hand, the slate tablets are the ones who have suffered over a period of time.
Among the vendors who continued to dominate the global tablet market, Apple still leads the chart with about 24.6 percent and 8.9 million shipments. However, the IDC reports suggest that the Cupertino-based firm has seen a 13th consecutive quarter of year-over-year shipment decline. Apple shipped about 10.3 million shipments units in Q1 2016 with a market share of 25.9 percent translating into a year-on-year decline of 13 percent.
Next up in the list was Samsung which shipped about 6 million units of tablets in Q1 2017, identical to the figures achieved in Q1 2016. However, the market share increased from 15.2 percent 16.5 percent in Q1 2017. Another important thing to note is Samsung’s gradual shift from slate tablets to detachable. Despite launching its Tab S3 at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the company is approaching the PC market again with a handful of Windows 10 detachable tablet models. If you are not aware, Samsung discontinued its PC business in 2014.
After Huawei and Samsung, Huawei took the third spot showing a positive growth of 31.7 percent from last year. The Chinese company shipped 2.7 million units in Q1 2017 along with a market share of about 7.4 percent. While Apple and Samsung have been some of the major players in the tablet market, Huawei is more of a newcomer and its future plans for this industry seems blurry at the moment.
Thanks to its Kindle Fire devices, Amazon managed to grab the fourth spot with 2.2 million shipments in Q1 2017 with a market share of about 6.0 percent. IDC report suggests that Amazon will continue to deliver more Kindle products in future to cater the tablet market globally.
Lastly, Lenovo sits on the fifth place and managed to ship 2.1 million units along with 5.7 percent of market share. Lenovo recently launched a bunch entry level tablets at the MWC 2017 and the report further predicts that the company will continue to grow in the detachable tablet category.