Tablets Shipments Fall for 5th Straight Month, Says IDC

Tablets were the only category to decline in Apple’s Q3, and it was part of a category-wide trend. In the overall tablet market, shipments fell 8.8% worldwide in Q3 to 38.6 million, for the fifth consecutive month of decline, according to a Monday IDC report. Market leader Apple had a year-on-year decline of 1.1% to 14.5 million but grew share to 37.5%, IDC said. Samsung had half that share, with a 4% drop in shipments to 7.1 million. Amazon’s units dropped 8.1% vs. Q3 2021 to 4.3 million, with 11.1% share. Lenovo’s shipments plunged 36.6% to 2.7 million, for 7% share. Huawei rounded out the top five with 2.4 million shipments. “After massive growth in 2020 and 2021, a decline in the tablet market was expected in 2022,” said IDC analyst Anuroopa Nataraj, citing a demand slowdown, plus strong macroeconomic headwinds. Chromebook shipments also struggled in Q3, declining 34.4% to 4.3 million units. Both markets have shifted from supply-constrained industries to ones that are demand challenged as consumer and education spending has slowed amid economic uncertainties. Chinese vendors continue to do well in emerging markets where there is low-end demand, and sanctions from many vendors enabled Chinese vendors like Huawei to perform well in the Russian market, IDC said. Chromebooks will continue to play a role in personal computing and ultimately grow their presence vs. other platforms, said analyst Ryan Reith.