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Cape Town – Tablets have taken a sales hit, eroding confidence that they will come to rescue mobile sales in the shopping season.
According to data from International Data Corporation (IDC) tablet sales declined by 12.6% as the global market slowed.
The IDC blamed the poor showing for tablets on the rise of large screen smartphones – or phablets.
“As the smartphone installed base continues to grow and the devices get bigger and more capable, the need for smaller form factor slate tablets becomes less clear. With shipment volumes slowing over four consecutive quarters, the market appears to be in transition,” said Ryan Reith, programme director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers.
Apple leads the tablet market with its iPad shipping 9.9 million units in the third quarter – a decline of 19.7%. Rival Samsung was also a loser dropping 17.1%, though maintaining its second place slot with its eight million units.
In third was Lenovo which gained just 0.9% to end the quarter with market share of 6.3%, well behind Apple (20.3%) and Samsung (16.5%).
The winner among losers was Huawei which saw a jump of 147% though that was only good enough for market share of 3.7% with 1.8 million units shipped.
It was a bad quarter for Asus (4%) which saw its tablet market drop 43.4% to end a hair in front of Huawei with 1.9 million units.
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