Tablet sales continue to decline, falling 13.5 per cent
- Thursday, August 2nd, 2018
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Global tablet sales have fallen yet again – the 15th consecutive decline in sales – with shipments down 13.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2018.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), shipments fell to 33m around the world with slate tablets accounting for 28.4m at a decline of 14.5 per cent compared to Q2 2017. The period also saw detachable tablet sales decline in the quarter, but this has largely been attributed to high-profile product launches during the same period last year and the lack of updates to those products this year.
“The detachable market is at a crucial stage as it has been driven primarily by premium products from Microsoft and Apple and growth has slowed in recent months,” said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst with IDCs Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. “Though consumers and businesses alike have shown interest in the detachable form factor, those operating on tighter budgets have had very few options available to them and hence some have opted for traditional PCs.”
Looking at individual companies, Apple managed to increase its market share to 34.9 per cent, up from 29.9 per cent in Q2 2017. In increasing its market share, the company shipped 11.5m units, up slightly on last year’s 11.4m units. 
Meanwhile, Apple’s major tech rival Samsung saw sales decline from 6m to 5m and lost 0.5 per cent of its market share in falling to 15.1 per cent. In third place, Huawei was the only hardware manufacturer other than Apple to enjoy sales growth for the period – increasing sales to 3.4m from 3.1m and increasing its market share from 8.2 per cent to 10.3 per cent.
Lenovo came in ahead of Amazon to claim the fourth, shipping 2m units compared to the 2.2m it sold the year prior, but managed to increase is its market share from 5.7 per cent to six per cent. On the other hand, Amazon’s tablet shipments fell to 1.6m from 2.4m with its market share falling to 4.9 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
All other tablet manufacturers accounted for 9.5m shipments between them – down from 13.1m in Q2 2017.
