Worldwide tablet shipments are expected to decline by 12% in 2016, rounding out the year at 182.3 million shipments.
This is according to a new report from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, which notes the tablet market will rebound in 2018, although growth will remain in the low single digits as detachable tablets slowly gain traction.
"The benefits of a thin and light design, combined with a touchscreen, are bolstering growth in the detachable tablet market, but are also bleeding over into the PC market as slim and convertible-type notebooks gain popularity," says Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. "This is a welcome change for vendors as average selling prices for notebooks and tablets are expected to increase in the near term."
Emerging markets will continue to decline until 2018 and then growth will flatten out in the following two years. Although these markets are forecast to show growth in the detachable segment, the disproportionate decline in slate tablets ensures no growth until 2020.
"The transition to detachables is inevitable, but slate tablets will remain relevant as highlighted by recent results from Amazon with its Kindle Fire portfolio," said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director, Tablets at IDC. "Fuelled by ultra-low-end prices and a growing ecosystem play involving the Internet of things, slate tablets will still account for more than twice the volume of the detachable segment with 124 million units forecast to be shipped in 2020."
Global market research firm TrendForce estimates that global tablet shipments for 2016 will total around 154.5 million units, translating to an annual decline of 8.3%. Looking ahead to 2017, branded tablet vendors will adjust their product strategies and generate demand by releasing low-price devices. Hence, global shipments for 2017 are forecast to fall by just 5.3% annually to about 146.4 million units.
Anita Wang, notebook analyst for TrendForce, says the saturation of the tablet market, the long life cycles of tablets themselves and the abundance of substitute devices are major factors that contributed to the large shipment decline.
Meanwhile, research and analytics firm Strategy Analytics says global tablet shipments reached 46.6 million units in Q3 2016, down 10% from 51.7 million in Q3 2015 and down 1% compared to Q2 2016.
"Windows market share grew by 5 percentage points year-on-year to 16% of global shipments at the expense of Android, and to a lesser extent, iOS," reveals Strategy Analytics.
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