Are “phablets” killing tablets? Not yet.
Research firm IDC reports that tablet sales are a long way from heading into a death spiral with sales growing 11 percent over a year ago. Plus, the recently announced IBM-Apple deal could drive enterprise sales. But Apple’s share is declining and Lenovo climbs to No. 3.
In a report issued Thursday, IDC said tablet sales did fall 1.5 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter. Still, shipments climbed to 49.3 million, an 11 percent increase from a year ago. Still, sales were far short of the nearly 80 million reported in the last quarter of 2013.
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IDC projects growth, albeit “slower,” the rest of the year.
Market leader Apple’s shipments did fall 9.3 percent from a year ago to 13.3 million.
However, No. 2 Samsung’s shipments improved 1.6 percent to 8.5 million and Lenovo’s surged a whopping 65 percent to 2.4 million. That performance moved Lenovo to No. 3 in tablet market share at 4.9 percent ahead of ASUS.
IDC also sees tablets gaining as the recently announced IBM-Apple partnership focuses on driving enterprise sales.
“As we indicated last quarter, the market is still being impacted by the rise of large-screen smartphones and longer than anticipated ownership cycles,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC Research Director for Tablets. “We can also attribute the market deceleration to slow commercial adoption of tablets. Despite this trend, we believe that stronger commercial demand for tablets in the second half of 2014 will help the market grow and that we will see more enterprise-specific offerings, as illustrated by the Apple and IBM partnership, come to market.”
The full report can be read online.
