While smartwatch sales seem to be improving in recent times, tablet vendors have no such luck. The sector continues to struggle from a complete lack of interest from mainstream consumers, leading to the sixth straight quarter of declining sales for what was once thought to be a rather promising product category. In its latest report on the state of the global tablet industry, market research firm, IDC (International Data Corporation), says that the worldwide tablet market declined by a sizeable 14.7% during the first three months of this year over the same period last year, which itself had seen a de-growth over Q1, 2014. Meanwhile, the only bright spot for the industry are ‘detachables’, which experienced a triple-digit growth during the quarter with global shipments of over 4.9 million units; a record for the first quarter of a calendar year.
Taking a look at some more numbers, Apple continued to lead the overall market even though it experienced an 18.8% YoY decline in overall market share. The company shipped 10.3 million iPads during the quarter, earning a 25.9% share of the global tablet market. However, the company had a 27.2% market share during the corresponding period last year with 12.6 million units shipped globally. Samsung’s sales also declined around 28.1%, although the company continued to remain at number two. It moved 6 million units during the quarter, cornering 15.2% share of the global market. During the same period last year, the company had managed to ship 8.3 million units, which gave it an 18% market share during that quarter.
Meanwhile, the only two major companies that continue to buck the trend happen to be Huawei and Amazon, and while they only have about 5.2 and 5.7 percent shares of the market respectively, they’re the only ones that are actually managing to swim against the tide. Amazon grew a whopping 5421.7% YoY during the quarter with sales of 2.2 million units thanks to continued demand for its $50 Fire tablet, while Huawei managed to grow 82.2% with overall sales of 2.1 million units during the quarter. Overall, the industry saw sales of just 39.6 million tablets during Q1, 2016, which, as already mentioned, is 14.7% lower than the 46.4 million units the industry had shipped collectively during the first quarter of last year.
