The telco channel in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) experienced its highest ever rate of growth during the last quarter of 2014, with SA's largest operator, Vodacom's, latest low-cost tablet offering being one of the driving factors.
This is according to the International Data Corporation's (IDC's) latest MEA tablet report. The research reveals the market recorded robust year-on-year (YOY) growth in the final quarter of 2014, with holiday purchases and aggressive end-of-year promotions spurring a particularly strong performance in the consumer segment.
The latest figures show the overall MEA tablet market grew 26.1% YOY in Q4 2014 to total 4.43 million units, with the activities of several Far East manufacturers spurring significant annual growth in shipments of Android (33%) and Windows (131%) tablets.
Victoria Mendes, a research analyst at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, says there are a couple of reasons behind this growth - including, in SA, sales of Vodacom's low-cost 7-inch tablet, the Smart Tab 3G, launched in October. Mendes says Vodacom shipped approximately 170 000 units during the quarter.
According to Vodacom, more than double this amount of units - 400 000 - have been sold since launch, with demand proving to be "stronger than even Vodacom expected". The operator says the price point - R999 on prepaid and R59 per month on a 500MB 24-month price plan - has been a big driver. Voice functionality - enabling the tablet to make and receive calls - was also enabled towards the end of November last year.
The Smart Tab 3G was designed specifically for the South African market and is the second Vodacom-branded device, following the Vodacom Smart Kicka. Vodacom confirms it has plans to bring out another version of the tablet, but could not share any details at this stage.
Tablet tiers
YOY growth of 16% saw Samsung continue as the leading vendor in MEA, with the Korean giant shipping a total of 886 000 units to the region in Q4 2014.
Despite suffering a decline of 11%, Apple retained second place in the market, with shipments totalling 580 000 units.
Lenovo remained in third position, but IDC says - with YOY unit growth of 100% and volumes totalling 572 000 units for the quarter - the vendor is extremely likely to overtake Apple at some point during 2015.
Asus maintained its fourth position despite shipments falling 7% to 206 000 units, while Turkish vendor Casper increased its shipments 80% to 180 000 units on the back of strong growth in the consumer and education segments.
"Moving forward, the MEA tablet market is expected to see a significant slowdown in growth," says Fouad Charakla, a research manager at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
"This has become particularly evident since the start of the new year, with the MEA market set to experience its first ever quarter-on-quarter decline in Q1 2015 amid intensifying competition from smartphones and phablets."
Nevertheless, says Charakla, the MEA tablet market is still forecast to post double-digit growth for 2015 as a whole, while other regions around the world will experience much bigger slowdowns or even declines. "The consumer segment will remain the major contributor to this growth, but we also expect to see a huge contribution from the commercial segment in 2015, with education deals being a major driver."
Share