Tablet shipments came down 8.8 percent year-on-year in the quarter ending September. This makes for the fifth consecutive drop in the shipment of tablet devices with a total of 38.6 million tablets shipped in the previous quarter. As The Register reported, Huawei is the sole company that managed to see tablet shipments grow in the wake of demand for the same in Russia and China. With wide-ranging sanctions at work in Russia, the market remained out of bounds for western companies. This helped Huawei to make the most of the demand for affordable tablets in the region.
As per figures put forward by IDC, 14.5 million iPad devices were shipped in the last quarter, which makes for a 1.1 percent decline over figures for the same quarter last year. Similarly, second-placed Samsung pushed 7.1 million tablet devices which were lower by 4 percent while Amazon shipped 4.3 million tablets, which marks a decline of 8.1 percent. Lenovo shipped 2.7 million tablets and saw the biggest 36.6 percent dip in sales. Huawei managed to grow by 2 percent and shipped 2.4 million tablet devices.
“After massive growth in 2020 and 2021, a decline in the tablet market was expected in 2022. The market is now experiencing not only a slowdown in demand but also some strong macro-economic headwinds,” said Anuroopa Naturaj, IDC research analyst. “Even though most tablets (Android) and Chromebooks are lower cost, we’re now seeing buyer concerns even at the low end. This is largely driven by these rising economic concerns.”
Tablet shipments remained strong during the past two years or so owing to the work-from-home and study-from-home trend brought about by the pandemic. However, supply chain constraints also caused by the pandemic severely disrupted production which too led to a decline in tablet shipments. With all of that easing off, the pre-pandemic trend in demand for tablet devices seems to be picking up where large-screen smartphones have come to be preferred more over tablets. The economic uncertainty caused by the current volatile geo-political scenario too isn’t helping things either so far as tablet sales are concerned.
It remains to be seen how the market stabilizes and if there is going to be a further drop in demand for tablet devices in the coming days.
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.
