The numbers do not come back to the manufacturers of tablets, which a quarter more – and nine consecutive – have fallen in sales. A new IDC study reveals how sales of such devices have fallen 20.1% from a year ago, and it does not appear that this trend can change.
The bad news is not so great for Microsoft, which has gradually gained the confidence of users with its Surface Pro, the reference convertible tablets that are stealing the wallet to the pure tablets based on both Android and iOS.
Sales continue to fall
IDC explains how 52.9 million tablets were sold during the last quarter of 2016, while the total sold during 2016 was 174.8 million units. That figure is 15.6% less than in 2015, and is also the second consecutive year in which the number of tablets distributed falls.
That has made many manufacturers have targeted the new trend of offering more versatile products with a convertible format. The base is still the tablet, but it comes with accessories like the stylus and especially the casing-keyboard that allows to use these equipment as if they were conventional notebooks.
Those responsible for the report say that in the second half of 2017 coming to market new “detachable” teams (‘Detachables’, in which the keyboard can be detached from the screen) both laptop manufacturers and companies that traditionally moved in The smartphone sector.
Fewer manufacturers, almost all lose ground
It is not a secret that Apple has been suffering this phenomenon in its iPad. The tablets of the firm of Cupertino also have long suffered in sales – although generate many revenues, and this is clear in the study of IDC; Where it is revealed that Apple has sold 18.8% fewer tablets than in the same period last year.
Samsung has also suffered a major sales downturn and fell 11.4%, while Amazon.com remains in sales thanks to its strategy of cheap tablets. Precisely this type of devices are catalysts of sales in emerging markets, but in IDC, they affirm that “unfortunately for the industry these are devices that do not equal great benefits”.
You may also like to read another article on iMindSoft: Sales of tablets fall back, but Amazon and low cost fare better
Amazon’s results are in fact of little relevance to these analysts, who point out that the Bezos company is not concerned about selling the devices, but “getting new Prime subscribers regardless of the type of device used.” The strategy, yes, has not gone bad for Amazon if we take into account annual sales: it has sold double what it sold in 2015:
Lenovo has grown significantly with a “wide range of innovative designs,” said the study, while Huawei has been the one that has given the surprise with a growth of 43.5% in the market. How did you do it? Apparently its catalog of solutions with 3G and 4G connectivity has been crucial to conquer the Asian, European and Middle Eastern markets.
In the IDC data it is also interesting to see how the “Others” category has been clearly affected by these trends. The market share is much lower than last year and also the number of units sold, 35.1% less. It seems that several manufacturers have withdrawn from the segment to focus their efforts on other products, which favors the most popular manufacturers, who still can not in many cases maintain interest.
Microsoft wins with its convertibles what others lose with their tablets
To these data are added others that come from the consultancy Strategy Analytics in which the perspective is significantly different. This consulting firm’s analysis compares the number of Android and iOS tablet distributed units with its estimated Windows-based convertibles.
The result is interesting, and shows that although the tablet and convertible market (including Microsoft machines) is not growing at all, there is growth in the number of distributed units of Microsoft convertibles. In fact, a lot of what iOS and Android device makers (but not all) lose in favor of the growth of Microsoft’s convertibles.
Convertible tablets based on the Microsoft operating system managed to increase its distributed units to 10.1 million units, which allowed them to achieve a 16% market share. This growth of 19% over the same quarter of the previous year contrasts with the significant losses of its rivals.
Eric Smith, one of the heads of the study, said that convertibles are a very attractive market segment, although high prices make renewal cycles affect total sales. In fact even Microsoft has accused the fact of not doing renovation of its Surface Pro 4, something that would probably have driven a little more sales of these devices.
Nor did Apple pay attention to their iPad Pro, which is expected to be renewed in 2017 and could be the only lifesaver of these devices for the Cupertino firm. The truth is that the segment of convertibles is giving a second chance to some tablets that although they are still valid for many scenarios (and if not that they tell our children) lose bellows to more versatile products.