Apple & Samsung continue to dominate the tablet market; Amazon's growing fast
The Coronavirus affected and continues to affect all kinds of businesses. The tech industry is no exception. There are various component shortages,delayed shipments, and delayed product releases, most notably Huawei's P50 series of phones that was supposed to arrive almost two months ago (expected to arrive this May/June).
However, the need to work from home has helped certain businesses do much better than before. Unsurprisingly, that's the tablet and Chromebook market. Tablets had an exceptional first quarter of 2021 (1Q21) with 55.2% year-over-year growth and a total of 39.9 million units shipped, according to initial data from the International Data Corporation (IDC).
This is exceptional in and of itself, but it's even more impressive when put into some context. For example, the last time the tablet market grew to such an extent was in 2013, when it surged by 56.9% year over year. Although Chromebooks are becoming more popular, they've only managed to sell about 13 million units in 1Q21, up from 2.8. million the year before. Tablets remain more popular, but the competition is real, and we are here for it since it always results in better products and value for the end-user.
"While vaccine rollouts and businesses returning to offices may slow down the work-from-home trend, we are still far from returning to 'normal' working conditions and hence the demand for tablets, especially detachables, is expected to continue for a while,"
Anuroopa Nataraj, research analyst with IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.
Unsurprisingly, Apple remains on top of the food chain when it comes to tablet shipments. Its year-over-year growth is 64.3%, and the Cupertino-based company holds 31.7% of the global market share. Samsung has seen a very similar growth - 60.8% year-over-year, and it currently hold exactly 20% of the global market share for tablets.
However, it's not Apple or Samsung that saw the most significant growth, compared to last year. Amazon and Lenovo hold the first two spots if we take into account the year-over-year increase in tablet sales. Amazon is first, with 143.0% growth, with Lenovo being close second with a 138.1% surge in shipments.
As expected, Huawei's influence in the market has died out due to the fact that its latest devices don't run Google Services due to the US trade ban. If it weren't for that, Huawei and Honor would have been one company, and the combined entity likely would have been on the second spot when it comes to market share, second only to Apple.
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