According to IDC, 44.7 million tablets were shipped from April through June of this year, compared with the 48 million that were shipped during the same three month period last year.
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Samsung slipped by a million tablets during the quarter year-over-year, falling from 8.6 million units to 7.6 million units, while its market share dropped a point from 18% to 17%.
The combined tablet market share of Apple and Samsung dropped to 41 percent in Q2 2015 from 45 percent in Q1 2015.
Marked by little hardware innovation and limited vendor upgrades, the tablet market declined seven percent year-over-year during the second quarter, according to new data from IDC.
Tablets are continuing to lose their allure. And many analysts have been left to wonder whether the days of tablet growth are over.
“The overall growth of the smartphone market was not only driven by the success of premium flagship devices from Samsung, Apple, and others, but more importantly by the abundance of affordable handsets that continue to drive shipments in many key markets”, says Anthony Scarsella, Research Manager, IDC Mobile Phone team.
“Each of the growing vendors managed to address available pockets of growth in the market; connected tablets for LG and Huawei, larger tablets and two-in-ones in the right price bands for E FUN”.
LG and Huawei ended the quarter in a statistical tie for fourth place, rounding out the top five with each shipping 1.6 million devices.
Major markets felt the impacts of weak currencies; mid-range to entry-level large-size smartphones continued to cannibalise tablets; and vendors saw high inventory, Digitimes says. The increase in total sales, however, wasn’t good enough to keep the company’s market share from slipping slightly, from 5.2 to 4.8 percent.
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“But with newer form factors like two-in-ones, and added productivity-enabling features like those highlighted in iOS9, vendors should be able to bring new vitality to a market that has lost its momentum”.
