IT Trends
Tablets See Modest Growth as Apple Maintains Lead
Apple continues to lead in the worldwide tablet market, but Samsung,
Lenovo and Amazon are creeping up.
According to a new
preliminary report from market research firm IDC, shipments of
tablets reached 40.5 million units in the second quarter of 2021, up
4.2% over the same period last year — modest growth compared with
the 68.6%
surge in Chromebooks in the same period.
"Opportunities in the education market are still ample for both
tablets and Chromebooks. Online learning has gained rapid traction
and has pushed forward the digital revolution in the learning space,"
said Anuroopa Nataraj, senior research analyst with IDC's
Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, in a prepared statement.
"While there isn't a single solution globally, many emerging
markets continue to ramp up use of Android tablets while schools in
some developed markets like the USA and Canada lean more toward
Chromebooks. That said, there has also been a recent uprising of
Chromebooks in areas of Europe, as well as a few Asian countries as
schools start opening up to platform change."
Apple was the leader in the quarter, capturing 31.9% of the market on
12.9 million units (up 3.5% from the same period last year). That
market share is down just slightly from 32.1% in Q2 2020.
Samsung's tablet shipments grew 13.3% year over year, reaching 8
million units. Samsung's market share climbed 1.6 percentage points
to 19.6%.
Lenovo made even grater gains, climbing 64.5% in total shipments to
4.7 million units. Lenovo captured 11.6% of the market, up from 7.4%
in Q2 2020.
Amazon grew 20.3% to 4.3 million units, capturing 10.7% of the
market. That's up from a market share of 9.3% in Q2 2020.
Fifth-place Huawei sold off its Honor business and lost significant
market share during the quarter as a result. Hwawei shipped 2.1
million units, down 53.7% from Q2 2020. Market share declined from
11.5% to 5.1%.
All other tablet manufacturers combined shipped 8.5 million units.
Market share was essentially flat for them.
Further details can be found in IDC's
Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.