As the entire mobile devices experience a slow down in sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide tablet shipments have taken an extra hard hit as the International Data Corporation (IDC) has reported that shipments have reduced to 24.6 million units which calculates to a decline of 18.1% YoY. Interestingly, the Detachables market saw a growth of 56.8% YoY, thanks to the popularity of iPadOS tablets.
The top 5 companies continue to be Apple, Samsung, HUAWEI, Lenovo and Amazon. Apple maintained its lead at number 1 spot even though it saw an overall decline in shipments of 30.4% YoY, shipping 6.9 million units. Apple did release new models for its iPad Pro series and also released a new Magic Keyboard accessory which helped bring up their shipment numbers.
Samsung saw a growth of 3.9% YoY for Q1 2020, shipping 5 million units. The sales were driven mainly by customers buying Samsung tablets as E-learning devices and to work from home during this quarantine period. Huawei stayed at 3rd position, shipping 3 million units, which is a decline of 8.3% YoY. The company is still struggling to make sales outside of China due to the lack of Google Play Services.
Lenovo went up from 5th place in Q4 2019 to 4th place in Q1 2020, shipping 1.6 million tablets for a growth of 1.9%. Their growth however, was only observed in some regions for Lenovo like Japan, USA, and Western Europe. In 5th place, Amazon’s Fire tablets shipped 1.4 million units for a growth of 6.4%