Publications
Partners
Cape Town - The tablet market is coming under further pressure even in its hottest markets, industry figures have shown on Wednesday.
According to data released by industry tracker IDC, the tablet market in the Middle East and Africa declined by 2% in just the last three months despite the region being the world's fastest growing for the mobile technology.
"We anticipated a slowdown in the Middle East due to the traditionally slow summer and Ramadan period, but there were also inventory pileups from the previous quarter in some parts of Africa and the Middle East, and these served to amplify the market's deceleration," explained Victoria Mendes, a research analyst at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
Samsung leads the region with 862 000 units shipped, Apple is in second with 622 000, and Lenovo in third with 420 000.
Phablets
Mendes said that technology companies were pursuing a particularly aggressive strategy in the region widely regarded as the next growth engine for devices.
"Traditional PC vendors, such as Lenovo, ASUS, Toshiba, HP, and Acer, are becoming much more aggressive in terms of their product launches and pricing strategies, and this is driving a considerable shift in consumer demand from low-cost Far-Eastern players to these Tier-2 brands."
The result has seen an upsurge in PCs while tablets have taken a hit.
"The two tablet giants, Samsung and Apple, saw their combined share fall six percentage points to 37% in Q2 2014, a trend that is expected to continue as consumers increasingly opt for the best of both worlds in terms of price and quality offered by the traditional PC vendors' new releases," said Mendes.
The rise of larger format smartphones or phablets has also gone some way in limiting the desirability of smaller tablets with 17cm (7 inch) displays.
However, manufacturers are pushing a range of options that include hybrid devices and larger format tablet that could be used as PC replacements.
"With Samsung launching its 12.2 inch Galaxy Tab Pro this year and expectations of Apple launching a 12.9 inch iPad in 2015, it is clear that even these vendors are trying to expand their product ranges to include various sizes," said Fouad Charakla, research manager at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
- Follow Duncan on Twitter
