IDC: Tablet sales up 50% in 2013, but growth is slowing down

With laptop sales slowing, those volumes have to shift somewhere, right? And that’s why tablets have been flying off the shelves in the last couple of years. 2013 was no different and saw a 50.6 percent year on year growth for total shipments of 217.1 million units.

See also: Microsoft Slashes Prices of (Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, Samsung) Windows 8.1 Tablets!

2013 was again no different in the sense that Apple’s iPad spearheaded the sales, with shipments crossing 26 million in the fourth quarter alone. It held a 33.8 percent market share in Q4, but has failed to keep the same pace of growth as the overall industry.
Samsung was second, capturing an 18.8 percent market share in Q4 and clocking a YoY growth of astonishing 85.9 percent. Meanwhile, shipments were down for Amazon in Q4 compared to last year. Asus came in fourth thanks to the Nexus 7 and PadFone range of tablets. It was Lenovo here that stole the show. Although fifth on the charts, it clocked a growth of mind boggling 325 percent.
For the future, here’s what Research Director Tom Mainelli at IDC had to say:
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the U.S. are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past. We expect commercial purchases of tablets to continue to accelerate in mature markets, but softness in the consumer segment—brought about by high penetration rates and increased competition for the consumer dollar—point to a more challenging environment for tablets in 2014 and beyond.”
Source: idc & gsmarena

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