Tablet Craze Winding Down As Shipments Fall By 28%
Posted on 09. Jul, 2011 by Albert Madison in Industry News, Tablets
credit - Reuters/Pichi Chuang
It might be okay for PCs to breathe a sigh of relief, according to the IDC media tablet shipments have fallen 28%.
A total of 7.2 million units were shipped worldwide to sales channels (retailers) in the first quarter of this year and those numbers were compared to the roughly 9.2 million units that shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Analysts had predicted big numbers but the market hasn’t met those big expectations, at least for the first quarter.
The market leader for the first quarter is still Apple, who started the new tablet gold rush in 2010 with the launch of the 9.7-inch first generation iPad. The IDC’s findings have shown that with their latest release, the 9.7-inch iPad 2, Apple continued to “dominate”.
Other market players like Motorola and Samsung experienced a quarter to quarter growth of 34%, but don’t let that gain fool you the Android tablets that those two companies make only account for 8.2 point increase in market share.
However even with the decline in shipments the IDC see’s it fit to up the ante and forecast that tablet shipments will hit 53.5 million units, that’s a decent move up from the 50.4 million units the firm predicted earlier this year.
Why would they increase their shipment forecast after reporting a 28% drop? The IDC proclaims that there was a drop in shipments due to limited supply and in the lack of iPad 2′s until the middle of March. Basically the IDC believes the drop in shipments was due more to outside forces than consumers shunning media tablets.
We still have a way’s to go before the year is up and we can see just how right or wrong the IDC’s shipment forecast really is, but I feel their number isn’t too outlandish.
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