iPad Sales May Be Lackluster, But The Tablet Market Overall Is Doing Just Fine
BII
But digging deeper, we find that the launch of a a new iPad in time for the holiday season is likely to boost sales before year-end. And attention focused on the iPad will also buoy lower-priced tablets, and help the overall market grow nicely.
In a new report from BI Intelligence, we break down the three-year-old tablet market and look at the latest trends in adoption and market growth, finding that tablet uptake will continue rising at a robust pace. The most significant misreading of the tablet market has been to forget that tablets had the fastest ramp-up of any computing device in history, so a pullback was all but inevitable. As more tablets gain traction at the lower-end of the market, however, there's no question tablet penetration will keep rising.
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Here are some of the most important facts about how the tablet market is shaping up:
- The overall tablet market grew 75% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2013 after 121% growth in the same period during 2012. That's a natural slowdown for an all-new product category, and still a considerable growth rate for a product that saw the fastest initial uptake of any computing device.
- Tablets are a seasonal market, for now, so sales are very dependent on holiday shopping and gift-giving. (Tablets aren't subsidized by carriers.)
- High-profile tablet debuts this quarter from Microsoft, Nokia, Amazon, and others put Apple in a fiercely competitive market.
- Since the first quarter of 2012, Apple has ceded about 40 percentage points of market share to Android, Amazon, and Windows and demand for seven-inch tablets forced Apple to create the iPad Mini last November.
- Apple's iPad is no longer indicative of tablet market trends. The tablet market still grew significantly as Apple's iPad sales slumped.
- We think the overall tablet market will grow 74% in 2013 and forecast close to 500 million tablets shipments in 2016. Our numbers are more optimistic than that of other research firms.
In full, the report:
- Explains why the tablet market follows a unique selling pattern that has resulted in uneven growth in nonholiday quarters.
- Puts the new iPad launches in context and considers how these devices will fare during the holiday shopping season.
- Sizes the tablet market and predicts growth in the coming years, laying out why we believe predictions of slowdowns and 'tablet fatigue' are overblown.
- Breaks down the various tablet alternatives and puts in context how quickly they have overtaken Apple, highlighting how premium iPad pricing is hurting market share.
- Considers how phablets and wearables could be the X-factor that might actually put the brakes on tablet growth.
- Compares U.S. versus international tablet adoption trends and forecasts growth in the underrepresented enterprise segment.
To access BI Intelligence's full report on How Fears Of A Tablet Slowdown Are Overblown, sign up for a free trial subscription here. Subscribers also gain access to over 100 in-depth reports on social and mobile, and hundreds of charts and datasets.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
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