We know, for five consecutive quarters, the global smartphone market has registered a year-on-year decline. It’s scary to think of the tablet market, which is less attractive to consumers as the current smartphones sport large screens and are ideal for gaming or other purposes that tablets have been popular for. But to know for sure, we should take a look at the data provided by research companies. Today, Strategy Analytics released the latest research report, which shows the global tablet market shipments fell 1% in Q4 in 2018, 2018 year-on-year decline of 6% to 173.8 million units. At the same time, we can see from the tables that Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo are considered to be the top five tablet makers in the world. It’s also noteworthy, Samsung posted its first global quarterly shipment growth since 2014.
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Apple, Huawei, and Microsoft also performed well in the fourth quarter due to signs of recovery in the tablet market – all three companies achieved growth throughout the year. Apple’s iOS tablet shipments increased 10% year-on-year to 14.5 million units in Q18 in 2018, pushing its global tablet market share up 26%. ‘y growing double digits, Apple added 2 percentage points to its market share year-over-year. Apple is attempting to remake the computing market with more mobile iPad Pros for productivity while offering lower-priced iPad slates for entertainment,’ said Eric Smith, Director – Connected Computing.
He also added, ‘The tablet market may be on the road to recovery as several major vendors have strengthened their hand in 2018, cannibalizing market share from weaker players and forcing some to consolidate or leave the market entirely. Lower Slate prices and a more fragmented Detachable 2-in-1 market play into this recovery as vendors are reaching a broader range of computing needs, just as the foldable tablet/phone makes its debut.’