The worldwide tablet market recorded lower shipments for the fourth straight quarter with 48.7 million units shipped in the third quarter, that is down 12.6 percent year-on-year, according to preliminary data from IDC. Shipments were down despite signs of a slight seasonal improvement, further highlighting the challenges the tablet market is facing.
At the close of 2014, IDC estimated the installed base of tablets to be 581.9 million globally, which was up 36 percent from 2013 but slowing quickly. With mature markets like North America, Western Europe, and Asia/Pacific well past 100 million active tablets per region, the opportunities for growth are getting fewer.
In response to these challenges, the industry is seeing growing interest from vendors in new form factors, with detachable tablets becoming a clear focus for many. While detachable tablets have held just a single digit percentage of the overall tablet market, this share is expected to increase dramatically over the next 18 months. However, the shift toward detachables presents some new challenges. In particular, the mix of traditional PC OEMs that are evolving their portfolios to include detachables will face pressure from the traditional smartphone OEMs, many of which have become accustomed to delivering extremely low-cost products. Apple is first in the tablet sales classification for Q3 with 9.9 million in the quarter and a 20.3 percent market share, ahead of Samsung with 8.0 million, Lenovo with 3.1 million, Asus with 1.9 million, Huawei with 1.8 million, and other manufacturers with 23.9 million.
