The iPad is in trouble. Last quarter, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced a 14 percent nosedive in iPad sales from the previous quarter. This time, figures released by International Data Corp. (IDC) reveal the iPad will see its first decline in year-over-year growth since it was first launched in 2010.
Although the sales of Apple's iPads continue to grow, the growth has significantly slowed down over the last three quarters as Apple announced continuous sales slumps for its iPad business. In a news release, IDC predicts that the iPad will see its first drop in sales in four years as slates running on iOS are set to decline by 12.7 percent from last year's figures. That amounts up to a total of 64.9 million new iPads sold for 2014, which accounts for 27.5 percent of the tablet market share.
The bleak picture doesn't only include iPads. A sales decline in Apple's tablets means an even worse situation for the overall tablet market. Android tablets, IDC says, will see a slight growth increase by 16 percent. This accounts for 159.5 million units sold by various Android tablet makers. Although Android isn't slowing down as quickly as Apple, and Google still continues to dominate 67.7 percent of the overall tablet market share, the only real winner is Microsoft.
Only 10.9 million Windows two-in-one tablets will be shipped this year, says IDC. That is only 4.6 percent of the entire tablet market industry. However, only Microsoft has seen stellar growth as much as 67.3 percent. In fact, while IDC thinks iOS sales will continue to decline and Android tablets will see slower growth four years from now, the research firm believes Microsoft will triple its sales to 32.6 million in 2018.
Overall, the tablet market will still see a 7.2 percent growth in sales this year, but that is a substantial decrease from the 52.5 percent growth it experienced in 2013. This, the IDC says, is not surprising, as more and more consumers become less inclined to replace their tablets every couple of years as they do with their smartphones.
"In the early stages of the tablet market, device lifecycles were expected to resemble those of smartphones, with replacement occurring every two to three years," says Ryan Reith, program director of IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. "What has played out instead is that many tablet owners are holding onto their devices for more than three years and in some instances more than four years."
IDC says two factors contribute to the longer lifecycles of tablets. One is the development of legacy software that provides support for older products. Users often find there is no reason to pay an additional $400 or so for a new tablet because Apple and Google usually make their latest mobile platforms available as a free update for users of older devices. iOS 8 for the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, for instance, is available for older versions of iPad Air, iPad mini. On the other hand, Android Lollipop, in a host of Android tablets from different manufacturers.
The other factor is the increasing prevalence of large-screen smartphones. As more and more people buy in to phablets, they find they no longer need a tablet since the things they can do on their tablets they find they can already do just as comfortably on their smartphones.
