A Striking Contrast
The global tablet market has continued to decline for 12 quarters in a row, Apple and Samsung, the two largest players in the industry show mixed results.
According to a report from global market research firm IDC on November 8, the global tablet shipments stood at 40 million units in the third quarter this year, down 5.4 percent from 42.7 million units at the same period last year.
Samsung Electronics has shown sluggish sales, though global leading manufacturers such as Apple, Amazon and Huawei, has put up a good show. Samsung Electronics shipped out 6 million units of tablets in total. The company had a 15 percent market share, down 7.9 percent from a year ago. The figure fell short of the average decreases of total global producers.
It is a striking contrast from Apple that saw its shipments grow 11.4 percent from 9.3 million to 10.3 million units over the same period. The gap in tablet market share for a year between Samsung Electronics and Apple has widened from 7.4 percent to 10.8 percent.
Amazon and Huawei, which ranked third and fourth in the market, also succeeded in increasing their market shares as they shipped out 4.4 million units and 3 million units, respectively. The market share of Amazon grew to 10.9 percent from 7.5 percent in the third quarter last year, while that of Huawei increased to 7.5 percent from 6 percent.
Global leading tablet makers, except for Samsung Electronics, have strengthened the competitiveness with their aggressive price policy. Apple boosted sales by selling the iPad with sharp reductions in prices, while Amazon obtained satisfying results with its cost-effective low-end tablets.
Apple posted strong Q3 results from April 1 to July 1, propelled by the sales of the iPad. This year, the iPad showed a sales growth in four years for the first time after it continued to show a downward trend since 2013. The sales of the iPad came to 11.4 million in the second quarter, up 1.45 million units from 9.95 million units last year. The Verge said, “This is due to the increase in sales of the low-end iPad with a price tag of US$329 (366,309 won).”
The industry believes that Samsung Electronics had sluggish sales as it lags behind Apple in high-end products and is threatened by Amazon in low-end products. Both the company’s premium Galaxy Book and its low-end Galaxy Tab A and E series struggled as they lag behind their competitors.
An official from the industry said, “Samsung Electronics also produces high-end detachable tablets but has a high level of dependence on low-end products. As an increasing number of competitors are providing cost-effective products, there are more problems ahead.”