Shipments of tablet PCs running Google Inc’s Android operating system surpassed those of Apple Inc’s iPad in the second quarter, thanks to the popularity of smaller models, according to research firm Canalys.
More than 34 million tablets were shipped globally in the April-to-June period, a 43 percent increase from the same period last year, Canalys said in a report on Thursday last week.
Apple, which created the tablet market with its iPad, saw its market share drop to 43 percent during the second quarter, with tablet shipments falling 14 percent from a year earlier to 14.6 million units.
By contrast, Android-based tablets accounted for 53 percent of the global market, as shipments from Samsung Electronics Co, Amazon.com Inc, Lenovo Group Ltd and Taiwan’s Acer Inc (宏碁) each grew annually by more than 200 percent, driven by increasing demand for small-screen tablets, Canalys said.
Canalys estimated that 68 percent of tablets shipped in the second quarter had a screen size smaller than nine inches.
“When Apple does decide to refresh its iPad range it will not experience the buzz of previous launches,” Canalys analyst James Wang said in the report.
“Tablets are now mainstream products and hardware innovation is increasingly difficult. With branded Android tablets available for less than US$150, the PC market has never been so good for consumers, who are voting with their wallets,” he said.
Despite its 53 percent share, Android still lags far behind Apple’s iOS platform in the availability of fully-optimized tablet apps, and tablet app downloads from the Apple App Store dwarf those from Google Play, Canalys said.
However, Android is expected to continue to close the ecosystem lead iOS has in tablets and increase its share in coming quarters, the research company said.
Another survey conducted by display research firm WitsView said that the iPad market share dropped to 35.5 percent in the second quarter of the year, a new low.
That was because Apple’s 9.7-inch regular iPad entered the end of its lifecycle in the second quarter, while the 7.9-inch iPad Mini’s relatively higher price also contributed to slower sales, WitsView said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained