The Tablet Market Has Hit A Wall [CHART]

Tablet shipments growth disappointed again last quarter.

Here are BI Intelligence's main theories for why the tablet market is collapsing. They are divided by region and use case:

• In the West, every consumer who wants a tablet has one. And those that don't have one are put off by the tablet's high cost. In developed markets like the U.S., U.K., and much of Europe, many consumers who can't live without a phone or a PC can easily dispense with the luxury of owning a tablet.
• In the East - particularly in huge markets like China and India that could drive significant growth - cheap phablets have taken over, suppressing tablet demand. Phablet shipments across Asia-Pacific grew an average 88% per quarter, sequentially, through 2012 and the first half of 2013, according to IDC.
• For business users - who might otherwise drive tablet market growth - tablets still aren't reliable or powerful enough as productivity tools to replace PCs.

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In the chart below, you can see quarterly tablet market growth, both year-over-year and sequential. Notice both are trending downward.