Global tablet shipments fell 12.6 percent annually to 48.7 million units last quarter, while Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) shipments plunged 43.4 percent, International Data Corp (IDC) said yesterday.
Last quarter’s tablet shipments posted their fourth consecutive quarter of annual decline, with the scale of the decline widening from the previous quarter’s 7 percent to 12.6 percent, IDC said.
The result highlights the challenges the tablet market is facing, IDC said.
“As the smartphone installed base continues to grow and the devices get bigger and more capable, the need for smaller-form factor slate tablets becomes less clear,” IDC mobile device trackers program director Ryan Reith said in a statement.
Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co continued to secure the first and second spot in the shipment rankings last quarter, with quarterly shipments of 9.9 million units and 8 million units respectively, IDC said.
However, both Apple and Samsung experienced double-digit percentage declines in shipments from a year earlier, it said.
Third-ranked Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) saw its tablet shipments edge up 0.9 percent annually to 3.1 million units last quarter, while Asustek stayed in the fourth spot, with shipments declining 43.4 percent to 1.9 million units, IDC said.
IDC, which considers two-in-one notebooks as tablet products, said Asustek was able to stay in the top five mainly due to its low-cost Android tablet portfolio.
Asustek chief executive officer Jerry Shen (沈振來) in July said the firm expected to ship between 7 million and 9 million tablets this year, a decline of 25.53 percent from last year’s 9.4 million units.
The firm sold 4.4 million tablets worldwide in the first three quarters of the year, data showed.
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