Apple iPad shipments may suffer first-ever decline, as tablet market slows: IDC

While the smartphone market has been showing some steady growth, we wouldn’t say the same about tablets. A new IDC report suggests that the tablet market has taken a beating this year and the reigning iPad will also beat the brunt. The report points out that Apple is set to face its first ever yearly decline in its iPad sales this year. Apple is projected to ship 64.9 million iPad tablets in 2014, which is a fall of 12.7% on the total number of shipments in 2013. Google’s Android operating system, following in the footsteps of its prevalence in the smartphone market, will continue to remain the most popular operating system for tablets. This year, it claimed nearly 68% of the tablet market, by shipping nearly 160 million devices. The tablet market is likely to grow by only 7.2 percent in 2014. It should be noted that tablet shipments between 2012 and 2013 grew 52.5%. This clearly shows the major drop it will be facing. One of the reasons cited by the research firm is the period of time people take to replace their tablets. “The tablet market continues to be impacted by a few major trends happening in relevant markets. In the early stages of the tablet market, device lifecycles were expected to resemble those of smartphones, with replacement occurring every 2-3 years. What has played out instead is that many tablet owners are holding onto their devices for more than 3 years and in some instances more than 4 years. We believe the two major drivers for longer than expected tablet lifecycles are legacy software support for older products, especially within iOS, and the increased use of smartphones for a variety of computing tasks," states Ryan Reith, Program Director with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. Its not just the replacement cycle that is to be blamed. There are other factors like popularity of phablets and non-compelling features in tablets, which make tablets a needless expense. The report points out that efforts like 2-in-1 devices and detachable capabilities have not been successful in attracting buyers. “Significant advancements have been made recently by hardware manufacturers to advance the 2-in-1, or detachable, product category. Despite these advances, shipments of 2-in-1 devices are expected to reach only 8.7 million units in 2014, which is just 4% of the total tablet plus 2-in-1 market," states the IDC report. Another reason is said to be how people are hesitant to adopt the Windows 8 platform, which runs on most hybrid devices. According to IDC, only 11 million Windows-based tablets were shipped that account to less than 5 percent of the overall market.