Analysis of Development Status of Global Tablet Computer Industry

According to the IDC report, the global tablet shipments in 2015 were 206.8 million units, down 10.1% from 231.0 million units in 2014. Among them, the global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter were 65.9 million, which was 13.7% lower than the 7.64 million in the same period in 2014.

Top Five Tablet PC Vendors Shipped in the Fourth Quarter of 2015

In the fourth quarter of 2015, the top five vendors were Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo, and Huawei. The world’s leading five tablet PC vendors together accounted for 54.2% of the market; compared with 51.0% of the previous year’s market share. has seen an increase. However, only Amazon and Huawei achieved their respective market share growth. In the fourth quarter of 2015, Apple and Samsung’s tablet PC sales both declined; Amazon’s and Huawei’s sales increased. In terms of tablets, Amazon ranks among the top five suppliers only in the fourth quarter, because this quarter is the company's most important holiday season.

2015 Top Five Tablet PC Vendors Shipped

Throughout 2015, the rankings of the top three vendors remained unchanged, with Apple occupying the top spot with a market share of 24%, Samsung ranked second with 16.2%, and Lenovo ranked third with 5.4%. The fourth and fifth rankings are Asus and Huawei respectively. In 2015, the top five tablet computer vendors together accounted for 52.1% of the market share, down from 56.2% in the previous year.

Tablet shipments in the first quarter of 2016

According to the latest report of the international market research firm IDC on May 1, the global shipment of tablet PCs (including split-type tablet PCs with keyboards) reached 39.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016, a decrease of 14.7% year-on-year. According to the report, the size of the split-type tablet PC market is still very small, and Apple's iPad Pro sales have surpassed Microsoft's Surface series at the end of last year.

The top five brands in terms of shipments were Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo, and Huawei. Among them, Apple’s iPad is still the king of the tablet PC industry. Its market share accounted for as high as 1⁄4, but it has fallen sharply year-on-year.

IDC analysts said that the first quarter of this year, the decline in shipments because of seasonal factors coupled with poor overall consumer demand, the Tablet PC market is already saturated, tends to shrink. Cheap tablet PCs mainly ship from Amazon's Kindle Fire series, it is worth noting that Amazon achieved a five-fold increase in shipments through cheap tablet PCs, which is helpful for promoting its digital content. However, such cheap products do not help sellers who rely on hardware sales to increase their profit margins.

With the introduction of the Surface product line, Microsoft created the removable tablet market. IDC analysts said that the PC industry is declining. Consumers and businesses are looking to replace their aging PCs with removable tablet PCs. Apple, which has just entered the commercial flat-panel market, has gained an eye-catching destination in the short term, but the iPad Pro running on iOS still hasn't proven to be accepted by companies. For Microsoft and its hardware partners, these undoubtedly left them a lot of room for development.

In the first quarter, Apple continued to lead the market with 10.3 million shipments, but its market share fell from 27.2% to 25.9%. Samsung ranked second with 6 million shipments, while its market share decreased from 18% to 15.2%. The third Amazon, which shipped 2.2 million units, accounted for 5.7% of the market. Lenovo and Huawei shipped shipments of 2.2 million units and 2.1 million units, respectively. Their market shares were 5.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Huawei's upgrade was more obvious.

IDC expects that the growth of iPad Pro will mainly come from the replacement of old iPads and PCs. However, because the 9.7-inch iPad Pro launches and the iPad Air 2 that cuts the price to 399 US dollars can stimulate consumers to iteratively change.

IDC expects shipments of tablet PCs to decline by 9.6% in 2016 compared to 2015, while global tablet shipments in 2015 fell by 10% from 2014. The year 2017 is not going to be any better. IDC expects the decline in tablet PC sales will be 0.5%, 2.1% in 2018, and 3.3% in 2019. The reason why the tablet computer will stop falling, IDC believes that the two-in-one tablet will provide tremendous power for market growth. IDC expects that two-in-one tablets will account for 31% of the entire tablet market by 2020, much higher than the current 16%. The decrease in the price of less than 9-inch tablets should be able to attract a considerable number of consumers. Most of them come from emerging markets.

Source: China Manufacturing Network Industry Analysis Report