Sam Oliver
The tablet market remains Apple's to lose, according to new data released Thursday, as the Cupertino company commanded almost 27 percent of tablet shipments in the second quarter of 2014 — nearly 10 percentage points more than rival Samsung, its closest competitor.
South Korean conglomerate Samsung held 17.2 percent of the market, followed by Chinese PC maker Lenovo with 4.9 percent and Taiwanese firms Asus and Acer at 4.6 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Lenovo experienced particularly explosive growth, increasing shipments by 64.7 percent year-over-year, according to the latest estimates from research firm IDC.
The overall market is said to have grown by 11 percent from the year-ago quarter to 49.3 million units. Much of the increase came from smaller tablet makers, IDC said.
"Until recently, Apple, and to a lesser extent Samsung, have been sitting at the top of the market, minimally impacted by the progress from competitors," IDC tablet analyst Jitesh Ubrani said in a release. "Now we are seeing growth amongst the smaller vendors and a leveling of shares across more vendors as the market enters a new phase."
Apple sold just 13.2 million iPads in its own fiscal third quarter, a 9.2 percent year-over-year decline. Company officials said they were not concerned, however, and CEO Tim Cook went as far as to say his company is "very bullish about the future of the tablet market."
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44 Comments
I'm an Apple person since the old Apple II days. However, being an IT professional, I had to try all the other flavors of tablets. Apple just gets it. No one else understands the tablet metaphor any better than our friends in Cupertino.
Tablets are the future for most personal computing (and a lot of work computing too). We've known that since "a big iPhone" was first imagined. But conventional computers will still have their uses, and Macs are advancing steadily. What is interesting is to see how the transition happens. At first it seemed it would be a slow shift over many years. Then the iPad took off and it seemed the shift was happening fast. Now tablet sales are slowing (but user base is still growing) and the truth seems somewhere in between. Complicating factors: - Tablets stay useful a long time, and aren't subsidized by phone makers. High tablet usage doesn't always mean high repeated sales. - Many people just use their phones for their primary computing (not just phablets, but that help). In that way, touch can replace a laptop for many tasks and not need a tablet. - Apple is making it increasingly easy to use a Mac and iOS device(s) together. (Together in the right way! Not a la Microsoft.) The iPad will eat most of the Mac market (never all!) but it looks to be a slow transition. What about the larger market? Android seems to be claiming the "dumb video player" market worldwide, and the rest leans heavily to Apple. Enterprise? Microsoft wants it. They have a tough road, but they have a chance.
I agree that iPads are not going to have the regular, subsidized upgrade cycle like the iPhones (all phones, actually) do every 2 years.
It will be much more like desktops/laptops which tended to get upgraded every 5 years or so.
So, what you'll see over time is a slower long term growth in iPads as more and more people who don't have one decide to buy it for the first time. And as the older iPads get long in the tooth, have smaller memory sizes, slower processing, lack of multitasking and other advances, the older iPads will be upgraded to whatever new iPad is available. Just like laptops and desktops.
The IBM deal with the Enterprise market, plus the Education market, will add to that long-term growth.
The day I can drop my iPad in a charging stand and at that point operate it with a keyboard (inc the use of CMD-Tab), and a mouse it will become a LOT more useful and speedy as a laptop replacement. Not sure it will ever happen because the mbAir is still so awesome. I feel spoilt for choice to be honest and I am pretty damn happy with my mix of devices at this moment.
The day I can drop my iPad in a charging stand and at that point operate it with a keyboard (inc the use of CMD-Tab), and a mouse it will become a LOT more useful and speedy as a laptop replacement. Not sure it will ever happen because the mbAir is still so awesome. I feel spoilt for choice to be honest and I am pretty damn happy with my mix of devices at this moment.
You could always opt for a Surface Pro 3.