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Have Tablet Computers Had Their Day?

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Is The Appeal Of Tablet Computers Waning?

It seems that sales of tablet computers are slowing down somewhat. Many of the big tablet suppliers saw lower sales in the last quarter of 2014 than for the equivalent period of 2013.

The data below, sourced from IDC, shows that Samsung, Asus, Amazon and even the mighty Apple, all shipped fewer units in the run up to Xmas 2014 than they did pre-Xmas in 2013.

tablet computer sales 2014

Tablet Computer Market Share

It’s not all doom and gloom for tablet suppliers however; as can be seen from the graph, Lenovo bucked the trend, displaying 9% growth year on year. That’s widely attributed to the fact that Lenovo have a strong customer base in Asia, where market saturation is not so far advanced as it is in Europe and America.

Tablets have been around since Apple launched the iPad in 2010. Over the last 4 years, more and more people have bought tablets. At the risk of stating the obvious, the flip side of that is that fewer and fewer people don’t have them – and therefore fewer and fewer people need them.

A lot of American and European sales will now be upgrades and may, to some extent, be driven by hardware updates. That might explain some of Apple’s loss of market share – the 2014 iPad update was fairly minimalistic. On the other hand, even although Amazon had an extensive upgrade of the Kindle Fire range, they still lost a lot of market share.

tablet computer sales market share

 

Based on the market share changes, it doesn’t really look as if any of the major players are cleaning up. The only clear winner is “Others”, which may suggest that tablets are being seen as a commodity these days. And of course, a lot of those “Other” sales were made in markets outside of Europe and the USA, where branding may be less important than budget.

Is This The Death of Tablets?

Apple ipad mini vs ipad airIn a word; no. It’s a fairly natural result of increased market penetration and, in some cases, saturation. Tablets are no longer the new kids on the block and the market is entering, or has already entered, a new phase.

Apple won’t be too worried right now. Some of their lost iPad sales can be accounted for by iPhone sales at one end of the scale and Mac sales at the other. Companies like Samsung also make huge smartphones – “phablets” – which many people will use instead of a tablet.

IDC, who provided the data for the above graphs, didn’t include Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HD6, as it does not conform with their definition of a tablet (too small). And so it goes – there’s a blurring of the lines between gadgets, and some people will choose a big phone instead of a small tablet, or buy a low spec notebook instead of a top of the range tablet.

The Future Of Tablets?

Tablets will continue to sell well and will sell more than desktops and laptops combined in 2015. There will be a few changes as the market continues to develop and mature:
  • More sales will be upgrades to replace existing machines.
  • Hardware upgrades will drive sales even more than before – so they will need to be good.
  • More sales will be corporate (so far the large majority of tablets have been sold for personal use).
  • Corporate sales will see Windows tablets come more to the fore (Microsoft don’t even get a mention above).
  • Large smartphones will compete at the lower end of the tablet market.
  • Hybrid laptop/tablets will compete at the top end of the tablet computer market.
  • People will still queue all night for anything that Apple release.

The post Have Tablet Computers Had Their Day? appeared first on E-Reader or Tablet?.


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