Tablet Shipments Decline For Eighth Straight Quarter, No Company Surpassed 10 Million Units (venturebeat.com)

Similar to the smartwatch market, the tablet market is in rough shape. According to estimates provided by IDC, the tablet market has been in decline for eight quarters in a row, and no company managed to ship more than 10 million units. VentureBeat reports: Q3 2016 saw a 14.7 percent year-over-year decline: 43 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 50.5 million units in the same quarter last year. Both Apple and Samsung saw their shipment numbers fall once again, though Apple gained share, up 1.9 points to 21.5 percent market share. Samsung slipped 0.9 points to 15.1 percent, but still shipped more than double the units than those behind it. This is the third time that Amazon has placed in the top five in a non-Q4 quarter -- typically, the company only shows up due to the holiday season. The company's low-cost Fire tablet has propelled the company to the top, though the growth shown is skewed by the fact that IDC did not include the 6-inch tablets offered by Amazon in Q3 2015. Lenovo shipped fewer units but grew 0.3 percent to 6.3 percent share, while Huawei shipped more units and gained 1.9 points to 5.6 percent. Both companies have maintained their positions for many quarters now and don't look like they will be displaced.

Comments

No reason to upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought my kids iPad minis years ago. They all still work just fine.

Re:No reason to upgrade

[AuMatar]

You can beat it for reading- Kindle paperwhites are far easier on the eyes, less likely to cause long term eye strain issues, and will never run out of juice in the middle of a trip. I'd never use a tablet over an e-ink device for reading.

Re:No reason to upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

But e-ink device only work fine for books bought through the e-ink shop.

Not the original poster, but not true. All of my ebooks are either (1) from Humble Bundle sales, (2) converted manga/comics, and/or (3) pirated. Point is, I've never used my Kindle Paperwhite.online (mostly to avoid Firmware Updates*).

It doesn't work that well for surfing or watching videos.

Yes, it's an ebook reader. It just doesn't work well for other things*.

And reading books. I still prefer a real book. I can't help it, I simply can't get used to an e-ink reader nor tablet.

To each their own. I like physical books well enough, but nine times out of ten I'd prefer my Kindle. Mostly because (1) it holds a lot more content for the size, (2) I can use it in a variety of lighting conditions, (3) I have better control over the display** so I'm not stuck with whatever font/size the publisher decided was best, and (4) did I mention the piracy? :)

* Actually, there are a few other things you can do. Like play text adventures. Or have it function as a simple calculator. But what it really leads to is...

** Unfortunately, the relatively small screen size is met with baked-in borders and a smaller (than I desire) selection of font sizes. So, I actually use a small patched version of the fonts to have no margins and use a slightly larger font (I think it's actually somewhere in-between the Kindle's two largest fonts, but it's so long since I used it natively to recall. Also, using more than the default 6 built-in fonts is a pain (you can include a "publisher" font but it's baked in, one per document. Still, Caecilia is nice enough for me to not really worry.

Market Saturation

[Anonymous Coward]

New models dont really offer much over the previous ones at this point. Also, just because its falling doesn't mean it wont level out at some point.

Re:Market Saturation

[Guybrush_T]

Absolutely. And that's especially true if you look at Samsung tablets. The Tab S2 are more expensive and have a far worse screen than the Tab S. What the hell ?

Anyway, that's just a stable market. Tablets are fine, they are useful but they are not replacing laptops as some had predicted and of course, growing is only temporary.

I'm always amazed by some announcing things like "smartphone growth is slowing down !!" like it is the end of smartphones, or like markets could grow exponentially, forever. Some had this impression thanks to emerging markets (china, india) but smartphones, like tablets, are pretty old now, so it's only normal they reach their maximum.

Well ... yeah.

[jxander]

Is this surprising?

People who want tablets already have them by now. People who don't want them aren't going to buy one.

You're left with a very small market segment. People who have a tablet old enough to warrant replacing, people who always wanted one but previously couldn't afford one, but then got a nice promotion at work or something ... and that's it?

Unlike the smart watch market however, people do want tablets. It's a good form factor for media consumption. Sales should stabilize at some point. We're still just getting over the initial "gold rush" period to find the actually year-to-year purchase rate .

Re:Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen you post that horseshit on previous stories too where people have corrected you. Either you are too stupid to learn or read or are purely a POS troll. Why is it so hard for you to accept MS have a massively successful device now? it doesn't make your apple devices any less good or your Linux OS any lesser. Surface devices are one of the shining lights in MS's recent financial report, with huge year on year growth and around massive revenue and profit from them now. They are the choice device for enterprises now. I don't expect this will change your song because you are obviously incapable of checking your own facts even when corrected.