The declining ASP (Average Selling Price) and increasing demand for smartphones sporting large display have a direct impact on the worldwide tablet shipments Q2 2018. The narrowing gap between the Tablet and Smartphone has forced people to give a second thought while buying a tablet device. And, that’s the reason all device manufacturers are focusing more on phablets and less on Tablet devices. Consequently, the demand for PCs and tablets has been slowing down over the last few years.
According to the latest data released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the worldwide tablet industry seems to be struggling for a quite long time now. In Q2 2018, the worldwide tablet shipments reached 33 million units. That’s a massive 13.5% YoY decline. Surprisingly, this is the 15th consecutive quarter when the global tablet industry has witnessed the decline in shipments.
The situation, however, seems to be more disappointing for the tablet industry; while in 2017 all the quarters had recorded single-digit YoY decline, 2018 quarters (both Q1 2018 and Q2 2018) witnessed a double-digit YoY decline in worldwide tablet shipments, so far.
The overall growth of the tablet industry is driven by the Slate tablets, which accounted for the majority of the shipments in Q2 2018. A total of 28.4 million units of Slate Tablets were shipped during the quarter, albeit the shipment was down 14.5% from the previous quarter year. But slate tablets were not the lone culprit behind the decline in global tablet industry in Q2 2018; The shipments of detachable tablets devices also declined during the quarter largely due to the absence of timely updates to the high-profile product launches, such as Apple iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface Pro, towards the end of second quarter of 2017.
Here are main highlights of the report:
- In Q2 2018, a total of 33 million units of tablets shipped, globally. That’s a massive 13.5% YoY decline.
- Slate tablets accounted for 86% of the total tablet market in Q2 2018, globally. That’s a 14.5% decline from the same quarter a year ago.
- Q2 2018 was the 15th consecutive quarter when the global tablet industry has witnessed the YoY decline in shipments.
- Among the top five tablet manufacturers, only Huawei and Apple recorded some YoY growth in their tablet shipments in Q2 2018. Though, Apple registered a minimal 0.9% YoY growth in its iPad shipments.
Worldwide Tablet Shipments Q2 2018
While most of the tablet device manufacturers faced the music, Apple and Huawei fought against the odds to record YoY growth in their tablet shipments share in Q2 2018.
Apple marched on undeterred in the second quarter owing to the release of its new iPad towards the end of the first quarter of 2018. The company shipped 11.5 million units of tablets in Q2 2018, registering a negligible 0.9% YoY growth.
Huawei, on the other hand, registered a notable 7.7% YoY growth in its tablet shipments, globally. A total of 3.4 million units of tablets were shipped in Q2 2018, compared to 3.1 million during the same quarter a year ago. Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) continues to be the biggest market for Huawei, accounted for nearly 50% of the company’s total shipments in Q2 2018.
Although Huawei’s detachable shipments remain limited, they grew more than 200% in the latest quarter.
The growth of Huawei seems unstoppable now as the company is enjoying the phenomenal success in both, smartphone and tablet market, globally.
Samsung And Amazon Are The Biggest Losers
Samsung managed to grab the second spot despite witnessing a huge 16.1% YoY decline in its tablet shipments. The Korean electronics giant witnessed its tablet shipments fell from 6 million units in Q2 2017 to 5 million in Q2 2018. The shipment of both, slate and detachable tablets, declined in the quarter as the company is apparently losing focus, and interest as well, in the tablet market. In the last few quarters, a lot of tablet devices from Samsung haven’t gone through an upgrade of a refresh.
However, Samsung recently announced Galaxy Tab 4 – an Android tablet, which is expecting to boost Samsung’s share in the tablet market in the coming quarters.
The second quarter is the second consecutive quarter of loss for Amazon.com as well in terms of worldwide tablet shipments. In Q1 2018, Amazon shipped only 1.1 million units of tablets, with a huge 49.5% YoY decline. Though in Q2 2018, the company has shown some sign of recovery by shipping 1.6 million units of tablets, it registered a massive 33.5% YoY decline.
The Worldwide Tablet Industry: The Near-Death Situation
Apparently, the worldwide tablet market is in danger and continue to fall without any improvement. It is the 15th quarter in a row where the total shipment of tablets has seen a YoY decline. The tablet replacement cycle is closer to that of traditional PCs than that of smartphones.
“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,” IDC research analyst Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement.
Has the time come when brands need to realise that the traditional tablet market is no more lucrative? Is this rising demand for more affordable detachable tablets and big screen smartphones are taking buyers away from the tablet devices? This is for time to tell, we can however wait and see which brand launches mid-budget detachable tablets with exciting features.
