This year’s first quarter tablet sales figures are out though the findings are hardly anything to be too surprised of. Just as it is in every quarter of every year, Apple continues to dominate the show and returned the highest tablet shipment figures of 15.8 million units this year that making for 39 percent of the market share. The above finding revealed by the market research firm Strategy Analytics however revealed a 6 percent drop in year-over-year growth.
Among the others who made it to the top five spot as per the Strategy Analytics report include Samsung and Amazon making up the second and third spot with shipments of 8.2 million and 3.7 million tablet devices respectively. Both make for 20 percent and 9 percent market share during the first quarter respectively, which again marks a 1 percent decline in Y-O-Y growth for both the companies.
Lenovo came in fourth with 3 million tablet shipments which account for 7 percent market share. Lenovo is also the only company with the highest drop – 20 percent – in its quarterly shipments compared to the same period last year.
Microsoft, on its part, continued with a respectable performance, enough to secure a place at the fifth slot. The company shipped 1.4 million of its Surface devices and is the only company among the top five to return a positive growth rate even though it is just by 1 percent while securing a 3 percent share of the market.
Curiously, the above findings contradicted in some parts with that of IDC even though both reports tallied well on some key aspects. For instance, both research firms agree on Apple being the top tablet vendor for the first quarter of the year followed by Samsung, Amazon, and Lenovo. However, while the Strategy Analytics report has found Microsoft to be the fifth largest tablet vendor, the same spot has been taken by Huawei in the IDC report.
The figures too vary and by a significant margin too for Apple as according to IDC, Apple shipped 12.1 million tablets to account for a 31.5 percent market share and a negative 4.6 percent growth rate. Interestingly, the figures are quite close when it comes to Samsung and Amazon as according to IDC, both shipped 8.1 and 3.7 million tablets which made for 21.1 percent and 9.6 percent market share respectively. Strangely, both are shown to have registered a positive growth rate of 3.5 percent and 6.3 percent respectively.
The figures are also similar when it comes to Lenovo which, according to the IDC report shipped 3 million tablets during the period which made for 7.8 percent market share though growth declined by 25.9 percent.
The biggest point of difference between the two reports happens to be with the fifth spot which IDC claims belongs to Huawei. The report has pegged Huawei’s tablet shipment figures at 2.2 million to allow for a 5.8 percent market share and a negative 17.2 percent growth rate.
On the whole, irrespective of the number of tablets each company shipped during Q1 2022, what is amply clear is that the segment as a whole has slowed down a bit. While much of that can be attributed to the ongoing chip shortage, the gradual easing of the pandemic has led schools and offices to resume onsite attendance, something that might lead to less demand for tablet devices as it has been during the pandemic. That said, there has also been an ongoing trend to launch more affordable Android tablets and that is expected to stem the slide in tablet sales soon enough.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.