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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.
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 .
This signature is false.
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.
Does this mean we can have normal web UI back again? Remember, when buttons and menus didn't take up a good 30% of the overall page space? Like beta? Fsck beta for even having been an example of this.
iPads, and even iPhones, can connect to Bluetooth keyboards and use them just fine. In fact, some UX exists solely if you have a keyboard, such as the Cmd-Tab task switcher. The iPad Pro models also have the smart connector keyboards. They're pretty decent - as a touch typist I have no problem using them.
That said, an onscreen keyboard is fantastic when you just want to hold the device in your hands. Would I want to do a ton of typing that way? Absolutely not. But when it's useful, it's incredibly useful.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
It doesn't help that the last flagship tablet releases by Samsung (the Tab S2) and Google (Nexus 9) were not only expensive, but disappointingly 4:3 aspect ratio, making them poor for games and videos. I think Samsung's Tab S 8.4" and 10.5" tablets were the pinnacle w.r.t. the display on an Android tablet and there's been nothing since then worth buying. Heck, Google completely ignored tablets at their last launch, instead flogging clearly overpriced phones. If a Samsung Tab S3 came out with a 16:10 display like the Tab S, but with more RAM/faster CPU/GPU, then I'd probably first in line to buy it.
It's sad that my venerable Nexus 10 is still pressganged into service (with CyanogenMod on it of course, like all my tablets) - it was the last decent large tablet Google sold. It's no wonder tablets are dropping in sales - the Android tablet manufacturers in particular have almost given up making an effort to create a decent tablet. Yes, I know about the Yoga Book, but the price is a little steep considering the specs aren't fantastic and you can't detach the display and use it as a standalone tablet.
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.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I don't understand Google. The Nexus 7, both 2012 and 2013 were big sellers. But no new Nexus 7 has been released in 3 years. As such, I haven't bought a tablet for myself or anyone in my family since 2013. 7"-8" is perfectly sized for a tablet, any bigger you might as well get a laptop. The Nexus 7 was also perfectly priced. I'm not going to buy a Samsung tablet with all it's bloated software, nor a super cheap generic tablet that never get Android updates. nVidia Shield tablets are/were too expensive, and I already tried the Amazon Fire tablet "Google Play store" hack with bad long term results (works for a bit, then get slower and slower).
Nexus 7 was it, and Google killed it off after 2013.
Aside from market saturation, our phones are now so absurdly huge, we don't need no tablets.
My phone is now actually bigger than my first tablet.