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Tablet Shipments Decline For Eighth Straight Quarter, No Company Surpassed 10 Million Units (venturebeat.com) 127

Posted by BeauHD from the downward-spiral dept.
Similar to the smartwatch market, the tablet market is in rough shape. According to estimates provided by IDC, the tablet market has been in decline for eight quarters in a row, and no company managed to ship more than 10 million units. VentureBeat reports: Q3 2016 saw a 14.7 percent year-over-year decline: 43 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 50.5 million units in the same quarter last year. Both Apple and Samsung saw their shipment numbers fall once again, though Apple gained share, up 1.9 points to 21.5 percent market share. Samsung slipped 0.9 points to 15.1 percent, but still shipped more than double the units than those behind it. This is the third time that Amazon has placed in the top five in a non-Q4 quarter -- typically, the company only shows up due to the holiday season. The company's low-cost Fire tablet has propelled the company to the top, though the growth shown is skewed by the fact that IDC did not include the 6-inch tablets offered by Amazon in Q3 2015. Lenovo shipped fewer units but grew 0.3 percent to 6.3 percent share, while Huawei shipped more units and gained 1.9 points to 5.6 percent. Both companies have maintained their positions for many quarters now and don't look like they will be displaced.
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Tablet Shipments Decline For Eighth Straight Quarter, No Company Surpassed 10 Million Units More

Tablet Shipments Decline For Eighth Straight Quarter, No Company Surpassed 10 Million Units

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  • seems legit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The kids are fine with the tablet we have now, we'll replace it when it breaks but it runs Youtube, Bloons TD and Angry Birds just fine, no reason to upgrade it.

    • Re:seems legit (Score:4)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @11:43PM (#53189799)

      Aside from market saturation, our phones are now so absurdly huge, we don't need no tablets.
      My phone is now actually bigger than my first tablet. [wikipedia.org]

      • They are stacking up around here - more than one tablet per person, and that's not counting phones/phablets.

        The new ones no longer do anything the old ones wouldn't do, except break more easily.

    • Yup. I have an Asus TF700 (released 2012). If it weren't for the fact that it stopped getting security updates and then went into a seemingly unrecoverable boot loop (lesson learned: if you buy an Android tablet, unlock the bootloader as soon as you buy it!), it would still be completely fine for everything that I use a tablet for: the hardware is fine, the problems are all software. If I'd bought one with the same specs from a less crappy manufacturer than Asus then I'd still be happy with it now. 2011

  • No reason to upgrade (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I bought my kids iPad minis years ago. They all still work just fine.

    • Agreed. I did the Apple development stuff for my company for a while and had a ton of devices. My favorite is the iPad mini. You cannot beat it for indoor reading - it's just the right size. That said, it did not make the leap to iOS 10, so it will probably end up being in pwn3d soon. Security updates won't be there much longer - which is a shame. I hope someone finds a way to put a third party OS on it (maybe they have already - I just haven't looked yet).

      • Re:No reason to upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @09:00PM (#53188873)

        You can beat it for reading- Kindle paperwhites are far easier on the eyes, less likely to cause long term eye strain issues, and will never run out of juice in the middle of a trip. I'd never use a tablet over an e-ink device for reading.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Trogre ( 513942 )

          Unless you like to read with your head on a pillow at night. Hard to see a paperwhite screen there.

          • Unless you like to read with your head on a pillow at night. Hard to see a paperwhite screen there.

            Obviously you haven't been following the latest in Kindles. The new models have backlight. My Kindle Voyage even has automatic backlight dimming. It starts bright and then slowly dims at night with the lights off to prevent strain on your eyes when reading at night.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Trogre ( 513942 )

              Right, which immediately removes all the supposed power-saving advantages of e-ink. My reader, a $50 Android tablet, also has a night mode, and redshifts at night so as not to cook my eyeballs.

              Plus I can still watch telly on it if I really want.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Anonymous Coward

                No it does not. e-ink shits all over tables when it comes to energy usage. The back-light lasts for weeks, it uses a tiny amount of energy compared to an LCD screen. But don't like the real world influence your deluded reality. You are so attached to your crap you take it personally when the laws of physics shit on your perception. Hey, you're poor, no worries; but don't fool yourself or lie to others about reality. You'll grow up one day. And fix your teeth.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Trogre ( 513942 )

                  Okay so tablets do use more power when the screen is on, so the tablet needs to be charged once a week rather than once a, what, month for you?

                  Tell me again how you can watch multimedia content on your crappy Kindle. Or surf the net without waiting half a second for the screen to refresh.

                  Does your Kindle auto-scroll? Honest question.

        • I just change my e-reader app to black background with white (more off white) text, and eyestrain issues disappeared.

      • +1. In my case it's a 10" Android tablet, but it's the same thing there, there's nothing in any newer tablet that makes it worth upgrading. It's the homeostasis point that PCs reached about what, ten years ago, but it only took a few years with tablets.

    • Do not replace them! The new ones are much more fragile than the original iPads and minis. We let our 8 year olds have free reign with an original iPad and a mini, the original iPad never broke (except by Apple updating its software into non-functionality), the original mini lasted through drops, kicks, dirt, and every form of abuse except dunking. After a bath around year three, we replaced it, new one was cheaper to purchase, but only lasted a couple of months before it was cracked into oblivion. New

    • This is our experience as well. Older iPads still do everything we want and never seem to break. I'm having trouble imagining a feature that would cause me to upgrade before they either break or are no longer receiving OS upgrades.

  • Market Saturation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    New models dont really offer much over the previous ones at this point. Also, just because its falling doesn't mean it wont level out at some point.

    • Re:Market Saturation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Guybrush_T ( 980074 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @07:25PM (#53188419)

      Absolutely. And that's especially true if you look at Samsung tablets. The Tab S2 are more expensive and have a far worse screen than the Tab S. What the hell ?

      Anyway, that's just a stable market. Tablets are fine, they are useful but they are not replacing laptops as some had predicted and of course, growing is only temporary.

      I'm always amazed by some announcing things like "smartphone growth is slowing down !!" like it is the end of smartphones, or like markets could grow exponentially, forever. Some had this impression thanks to emerging markets (china, india) but smartphones, like tablets, are pretty old now, so it's only normal they reach their maximum.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Hylandr ( 813770 )

        My Wife has lamented that tablet tech has lagged behind phone tech. Why can't we have 8 cores in out tablet instead of just 4 that we have been offered the last several years?

      • Similar story here. I'm still using a Samsung Tab 10.2. I'd like to get an updated version, but Samsung can't be bothered to make one.

    • Actually, when laptops are creeping - rapidly - into the desktop market, and smart phones are slamming the tablet products, it's no real surprise that this niche product (the TABLET) is in terminal decline.

      MY real joy is that current desktop / server / workstation models are rapidly invading the 'super-computer' realm of only a decade (or less) ago.

      With fast (USB-3 & USB-c) external links to really fast drives in the multi-terabyte range, and memory capacities in the 30 gig ranges, along with octal-cor

      • I see no reason to think tablets are in a terminal decline, any more than desktops were a while back. They're very useful for some purposes, and people are going to keep buying them, although not in as large numbers as they used to.

  • Well ... yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jxander ( 2605655 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @07:16PM (#53188373)

    Is this surprising?

    People who want tablets already have them by now. People who don't want them aren't going to buy one.

    You're left with a very small market segment. People who have a tablet old enough to warrant replacing, people who always wanted one but previously couldn't afford one, but then got a nice promotion at work or something ... and that's it?

    Unlike the smart watch market however, people do want tablets. It's a good form factor for media consumption. Sales should stabilize at some point. We're still just getting over the initial "gold rush" period to find the actually year-to-year purchase rate .

    • Is this surprising?

      People who want tablets already have them by now. People who don't want them aren't going to buy one.

      You're left with a very small market segment.

      We went through the same thing with the old feature phones. The sales always level off. At the spoint, there isn't a lot of impetus to buy a new one. Maybe the iPad pro, althhough it's kinda big. But otherwise, why buy a new one?

      The smartwatches were a failure, as a lot of us figured they would be. But seems like the only thing they are working on now is battery life. Even those who dislike Apple better hope they come up with something new so the industry can follow. Right now my Samsung Tab is looking j

      • I don't think smart watches are a failure, they are before there time, they don't provide the functionality required to make them useful enough, because the technology isn't there yet.

        What I want is one that doesn't require a phone, has better input (maybe voice, maybe detects hand movement, don't know), maybe a projector. maybe some form of kinetic charging.

        This was the same with phone, the iPhone was not the first smart phone, but had the right level of marketing, usability to make smartphones popular.

        • I don't think smart watches are a failure, they are before there time, they don't provide the functionality required to make them useful enough, because the technology isn't there yet.

          I think one real serious limiter of smart watches is that a whole lot of us don't wear watches any more. It would take a law to make me put something on my wrist today. when I usesd to wear watches a long time ago, the bands would pull hair off my arm, or stink, depending on the material of the band. Finally, since I was working around a lot of high current devices, I just abandoned them. Now I have a smartphone that does all I need. The trick of the smartwatches will be to convince us something we don't ha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      So tablet good for media consumption, hmmm? You left out one market segment, likely on purpose, people who bought tablets, found they had just purchased a useless toy and will likely never buy another one. So the tablet squeezed in between a smart big screen TV (no comparisson in viewing quality or comfort, craps all over tablet) and the phablet (portability craps all over the tablet and soon to come out enhanced output glasses, a big screen TV in your pocket).

      Reality is the only real value of tablets (d

      • You are correct, there are a lot of devices at very small increments infringing on each other.

        Your phablet might make a full tablet obsolete, but I prefer a smaller phone in my pocket day to day (still rocking my iPhone 5) so a Samsung Tab 10.1 is a great tool for browsing on the couch or watching videos while I cook. The on-screen keyboard won't replace a physical one, but it's certainly better than trying to type with a D-pad on my Roku.

        There is certainly no need to have every device at every marginal si

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Pulzar ( 81031 )

        You left out one market segment, likely on purpose, people who bought tablets, found they had just purchased a useless toy and will likely never buy another one.

        It probably depends on who you know or maybe it's an age thing, but I don't know anyone in this segment. Don't jump to conclusions ("..likely on purpose...") just because you're a different demographic.

        I'm guessing you're a millennial? Not meant as a negative jab or anything, that's just the demographic I know the least, and all the others seem like

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • My tablet has a large screen, and is intended as a PDF reader that does some other things not too badly.The Amazon reviews were fun: "The sound sucks! Buy it!" It is one of my lesser-used machines, but it has its role in my life.

    • Windows10 2 in 1s won. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For me, there was no upgrade path available from the Samsung Galaxy Note pro 12.2 (OF 3 YEAR AGO!). There are faster tablets without stylus, there are tablets with more pixels but smaller screens, and there are bigger screen tablets with less processing power and fewer pixels.

      There's no upgrade path that has all the existing features, plus faster processor, plus bigger screen. All the top end has been taken over by Windows10 2 in 1s.

      Microsoft seems to have gotten its act together, Google seems to have lost

  • More CPU? More wireless? More resolution? More GPU? Make the lens on camera really great or add a set off 3 different lenses?
    Change out the cpu, gpu and OS so all users have to hardware upgrade for the best new apps?
    Games that need new hardware can be created to push hardware branding.
    A new cpu and gpu needed every cycle to keep up with the great code and graphics?

    • I would settle for a fully replaceable ssd, maybe a single sodimm or mini pcie socket.

      Having to play "grope and tickle" with soft links to a functioned SD card to overcome limited storage on consumer tablets, and having to kluge around MS's absurd stance that SD cards always mount with removable storage flag set ( so no complex partition tables) is bullshit. Give me a real m.2 socket.

      • MS's absurd stance that SD cards always mount with removable storage flag set

        Android can mount / format SD cards as full ext4 file systems and use them as additional storage as a peer to the device's internal flash.

    • Re: What can be done? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For me it would be better general purpose control of the device. With both Android and iOS tablets I've used, eventually something comes up that requires a cat and mouse game of 'rooting' or 'jailbreaking' in which I'm uninterested. I want full general purpose control over my computing devices.

      I'll let that slide a bit for phones because they are ultimately still phones where reliability trumps features for me, but fuck that for any other computer in my life without a specific purpose.

    • First off all price. at $600 you aren't going to buy them often. Plus I'm scared to carry it out n public.

      Second off, replaceable storage and battery. By replaceable I mean slide in and out.

      I see the RCA line as being the next big thing--the Viking, Galileo and Maven between $80-$150 and comparable to 1st gen Apple's and Samsung's.

      • This I don't get, every other computing device has come down in price but top of the line Android tablets have increased in price. My Toshiba 10.1 cost $300 four years ago, today a name brand 10" tablet will cost $400-$500 and have less functionality. The Toshiba has a full sized SD card slot, try finding that on a tablet today.

        The SD card slot is perfect for previewing photos in the field. Damn near every DSLR uses SD card storage, pop the card into the Toshiba and fire up Droid RAW and I can preview my

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      More RAM. I'd wager my iPad 1 would still be usable, even at an abandoned OS level, for stuff like web browsing if it had enough RAM to handle javascript bloated web pages instead of just crashing.

      I also wonder why no one has shipped a low end PC in tablet form factor. Out of the box, it's a tablet form factor but with HDMI and USB3 ports that boots direct to Android. Supply it with enough flash storage and the ability to boot to PC mode where a desktop OS could be installed. It would be a tablet if you

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by product_bucket ( 3503967 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @07:26PM (#53188429)
    Does this mean we can have normal web UI back again? Remember, when buttons and menus didn't take up a good 30% of the overall page space? Like beta? Fsck beta for even having been an example of this.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I have a couple Insignia flex tables where the batteries won't hold a charge. I can't find a replacement battery of a similar size and capacity that doesn't require bulk purchase on alibabba. I just bought a new HD fire instead.

  • No decent new Android tablet in the last year (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rklrkl ( 554527 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @08:20PM (#53188665) Homepage

    It doesn't help that the last flagship tablet releases by Samsung (the Tab S2) and Google (Nexus 9) were not only expensive, but disappointingly 4:3 aspect ratio, making them poor for games and videos. I think Samsung's Tab S 8.4" and 10.5" tablets were the pinnacle w.r.t. the display on an Android tablet and there's been nothing since then worth buying. Heck, Google completely ignored tablets at their last launch, instead flogging clearly overpriced phones. If a Samsung Tab S3 came out with a 16:10 display like the Tab S, but with more RAM/faster CPU/GPU, then I'd probably first in line to buy it.

    It's sad that my venerable Nexus 10 is still pressganged into service (with CyanogenMod on it of course, like all my tablets) - it was the last decent large tablet Google sold. It's no wonder tablets are dropping in sales - the Android tablet manufacturers in particular have almost given up making an effort to create a decent tablet. Yes, I know about the Yoga Book, but the price is a little steep considering the specs aren't fantastic and you can't detach the display and use it as a standalone tablet.

    • Re:No decent new Android tablet in the last year (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @08:36PM (#53188747)

      It's sad that my venerable Nexus 10 is still pressganged into service (with CyanogenMod on it of course, like all my tablets) - it was the last decent large tablet Google sold.

      Pixel C, released Dec 8 2015?

      • The Pixel C costs more than my gaming PC. For that price I might as well buy a Surface. Not only that, the Pixel C is built with a (at this point) 2 year old processor. It's not 16:9 or 16:10. I really, really need a new Android tablet but it will not be the Pixel C.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pulzar ( 81031 )

      It doesn't help that the last flagship tablet releases by Samsung (the Tab S2) and Google (Nexus 9) were not only expensive, but disappointingly 4:3 aspect ratio, making them poor for games and videos.

      I get the video part, but why games? I've been gaming on it and 4:3 seems better, if anything -- you can fit more on there.

      For what it's worth, I've been very impressed with Tab S2. It's a great tablet!

    • produced. And there has been nothing worthwhile since then. I had to replace my Tab S 8.4 with a recent-model iPad Mini due to work (needed particular apps that were iOS only) and I hate it, it feels like it's years behind.

      I think the market is being misread. Apple is falling, yet everyone is still following Apple's lead (and moving away from very positive differentiation) as though Apple were still king. There devices were awesome in the '00s. Now they're stale—and rather than step into the gap, Andr

  • Sales of cell devices like tablets and phones are flat or declining - so there's no growth, but people expect lower prices and 5G build-outs. DirecTV is also declining. AT&T can obfuscate their numbers behind a Time Warner merger.

  • Microsoft? (Score:3)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Monday October 31, 2016 @08:26PM (#53188685)
    Maybe I am not around a representative demographic, but it sure seems like there are more and more Surface tablets around, with several major corporate roll-outs starting.

    • That's because you can get them for free by searching NFL teams garbage.

    • Burn the witch!

  • Tablets peaked about two years ago, when you could get a decent tablet with a high-but-not-insane resolution touchscreen (and S-Pen in the case of Samsung) and you could beam the screen contents to any miricast-compatible TV, projector or dongle.

    Now, as more useful features are being removed, there is very little compelling reason to upgrade.

  • Nexus 7 (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31, 2016 @09:18PM (#53188995)

    I don't understand Google. The Nexus 7, both 2012 and 2013 were big sellers. But no new Nexus 7 has been released in 3 years. As such, I haven't bought a tablet for myself or anyone in my family since 2013. 7"-8" is perfectly sized for a tablet, any bigger you might as well get a laptop. The Nexus 7 was also perfectly priced. I'm not going to buy a Samsung tablet with all it's bloated software, nor a super cheap generic tablet that never get Android updates. nVidia Shield tablets are/were too expensive, and I already tried the Amazon Fire tablet "Google Play store" hack with bad long term results (works for a bit, then get slower and slower).

    Nexus 7 was it, and Google killed it off after 2013.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • nVidia Shield tablets are/were too expensive

      The K1 was $199 when it was released less than a year ago. You think that's expensive?

  • Apple and Google have now managed to wallpaper the planet with tablets. They're everywhere... and their app stores and their movie stores etc... are everywhere.

    Amazon seems to be the oddball. They actually took the Google platform and managed to figure out how to capitalize off of the Google platform while mostly cutting Google out. Everyone else is basically screwed.

    So in the end, Samsung, HTC, all those guys are all going to die from Nokia/Blackberry syndrome. They don't make any money unless people buy n

  • Everyone who is going to get one now has a tablet for simple media consumption tasks, and most tablets out there are fast enough to do the job (my kids are still using their years-old original Galaxy Tabs—which show no signs of quitting—to browse the web and do homework). The same malaise that infected the PC market has hit tablets—the only real target segment is upgraders, and most users don't see a reason to upgrade.

    What's missing from the tablet experience continues to be the ability to

    • Exactly this! I use my tablet for games and watching Netflix/Hulu, but if I want to DO anything, I use my laptop. The tablet isn't even close to a laptop replacement.

  • it's propably due to most new tablets not being anything really better than the previous versions OR if they are, the price is almost twice as much as when the previous tablet released.. To me there just aren't any good midrange tablets, and most tablets which are pretty solid have been on the market already for 2 years..

  • "The Death of the PC" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Has been largely overblown it seems. People aren't just upgrading PCs less, they're upgrading EVERYTHING less.

  • if that $699 tablet can have $40 rough-and-tumble stunt doubles in the house or minivan or tent, only the Chinese who were shrewd enough to make these low-power bargain-bin placemablets will call step 4. PROFIT!

  • I've been saying for years that tablets are a bubble waiting to pop. They don't "do" anything new, and worse, they can't do many things that computers can, and they're less productive than a computer at the things they CAN do. (see Data entry) They're an entertainment device, but mostly a novelty. If you're only target is mobile games... well, 99% of those are complete crap. You can't list on your two hands 12 mobile-only games that have changed the industry.

    Nobody is developing new software on them (that

    • Clearly, a tablet is not for you. That doesn't mean it's bad for everyone.

      My mother-in-law has a lot of trouble with computers. She has no trouble with the low-end Android tablet we gave her, and uses it constantly. She uses more bandwidth than I do, and I thought I was a fairly heavy user.

      I wanted a letter-sized screen that I could use in portrait mode easily, to read PDFs (primarily assorted game rules).

      There's more people who play casual games than the bigger ones like Call of Duty. If you wan

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