iPad sales may be dropping, but at a slower pace than rivals
Apple is continuing to lead the global tablet market, IDC analysts claim, but while the number of iPad sales declined in the most recent quarterly results, it isn't as much of a reduction compared to the overall marketplace's 8.6 percent decline in the third quarter.
The 2018 iPad Pro, announced on Thursday
Apple reported selling 9.7 million iPads in Thursday's quarterly results. A dip from the 10.3 million units it shipped for the third quarter of 2017. Despite the slight drop of approximately 6 percent, the number is still considerably higher than the rest of the market.
According to IDC, Apple has a market share of 26.6 percent, an improvement on the same period last year, where it made up 25.9 percent of the market. The increased market share is attributed to other declines in the market, with an estimated 36.4 million shipments 8.6 percent down from the previous year's 39.9 million in the quarter.
"The refreshed $329 iPad with Pencil support that launched in late March continued to drive volume, although it was unable to maintain the same momentum from the third quarter of 2017," writes IDC, as it was the first time in a while that Apple had released a lower-cost iPad. "iPad Pro saw year-on-year declines in anticipation of a refresh at the beginning of the fourth quarter," the firm suggests, "which bodes well for Apple through the end of the year."
The top five tablet producers for Q3 2018, compiled by IDC
Apple continues to have a considerable lead on the main rival Samsung in IDC's list, with the South Korean electronics giant achieving 5.3 million units for the third quarter of 2018 and a market share of 14.6 percent. These figures are down from the 6 million and 15 percent share for the same period last year, with Samsung seeing negative growth of minus 11.4 percent.
Samsung is considered to be seeing growth in its detachable device portfolio, but that is outweighed by continued slate category declines. The company is apparently facing pressure in low and mid-market segments, with competitors seen to be providing better value products.
"The tablet market is more like the traditional PC market than ever before," advised senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani. "Not only do these markets move in sync with each other, but the decreasing margins and overall decline, particularly in slate tablets, has led to the top five companies capturing a larger share" over smaller vendors.
"Even among the top five, it is essentially Apple and to a lesser extent Samsung that continue to invest heavily in product innovation and marketing," suggests Ubrani. "This has helped the two companies to set themselves apart from the rest."
The rest of the top five is made up of Amazon in third, maintaining its 4.4 million shipments, Huawei seeing growth from 3 million to 3.2 million year-on-year, and Lenovo dropping from 3.1 million to 2.3 million, equating to year-on-year growth of minus 24.5 percent.
The 2018 iPad Pro, announced on Thursday
Apple reported selling 9.7 million iPads in Thursday's quarterly results. A dip from the 10.3 million units it shipped for the third quarter of 2017. Despite the slight drop of approximately 6 percent, the number is still considerably higher than the rest of the market.
According to IDC, Apple has a market share of 26.6 percent, an improvement on the same period last year, where it made up 25.9 percent of the market. The increased market share is attributed to other declines in the market, with an estimated 36.4 million shipments 8.6 percent down from the previous year's 39.9 million in the quarter.
"The refreshed $329 iPad with Pencil support that launched in late March continued to drive volume, although it was unable to maintain the same momentum from the third quarter of 2017," writes IDC, as it was the first time in a while that Apple had released a lower-cost iPad. "iPad Pro saw year-on-year declines in anticipation of a refresh at the beginning of the fourth quarter," the firm suggests, "which bodes well for Apple through the end of the year."
The top five tablet producers for Q3 2018, compiled by IDC
Apple continues to have a considerable lead on the main rival Samsung in IDC's list, with the South Korean electronics giant achieving 5.3 million units for the third quarter of 2018 and a market share of 14.6 percent. These figures are down from the 6 million and 15 percent share for the same period last year, with Samsung seeing negative growth of minus 11.4 percent.
Samsung is considered to be seeing growth in its detachable device portfolio, but that is outweighed by continued slate category declines. The company is apparently facing pressure in low and mid-market segments, with competitors seen to be providing better value products.
"The tablet market is more like the traditional PC market than ever before," advised senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani. "Not only do these markets move in sync with each other, but the decreasing margins and overall decline, particularly in slate tablets, has led to the top five companies capturing a larger share" over smaller vendors.
"Even among the top five, it is essentially Apple and to a lesser extent Samsung that continue to invest heavily in product innovation and marketing," suggests Ubrani. "This has helped the two companies to set themselves apart from the rest."
The rest of the top five is made up of Amazon in third, maintaining its 4.4 million shipments, Huawei seeing growth from 3 million to 3.2 million year-on-year, and Lenovo dropping from 3.1 million to 2.3 million, equating to year-on-year growth of minus 24.5 percent.
Comments
there is the old joke about HP selling products at a loss and making it up on volume, but that isn’t what we are talking here. Apple’s margins are the largest in the business. It has a tonne of room to make its frustrated fans happy.
The risk of going with option A ( lets call it the Burberry Strategy), as Apple is clearly doing, is that for a product like iPads, where Apple is dominant in the category, it slowly kills interests in the category completely. These iPad pro prices exceed most laptops. People will go for better price and flexibility and stick with laptops. They won’t be buying one of each. Unless you are a filthy rich corporate executive of course.
Overall what I am saying is the iPad Pro isn’t quite there enough to justify laptop prices. Yet.
where are updated iMacs btw?
I like Tim's approach...
For everyday, a 10s in his pocket and an AppleWatch on his wrist.
For work: a 27" iMac sitting on his desk.
For home: a 4K AppleTV.
For play: just the AppleWatch (Cellular)
For driving: AppleCarPlay in his Porsche Boxster.
For travel: an iPadPro with AirPods and the appropriate charging cables in a small backpack.
There! Done! We no longer have to quibble like were at a quilting club about which device is best!
Best of both worlds! MacOS and iOS.
Regards.
Using the Canon Connect app I can walk around a trade show with our photographer and see what he is shooting on the iPad as he shoots. I can easily tell if we got the shots we need, or if they are too blurry or grainy for whatever reason and have to be reshot. I can control our cameras in the studio with the iPad much easier than with a laptop. I am really looking forward to using Photoshop and the Apple Pencil on my iPad Pro next year. That may be a killer combination for the pro imaging market. And as someone who was given a Surface 3 with Photoshop a few years back, I can tell you right now that Microsoft has no idea how to implement this combination properly. Trying to access Photoshop’s tiny menus on the Surface screen was nearly impossible, and their stylus is in no way as good as the Pencil/iPad Pro combination.
Meanwhile, Apple is fleshing out its Mac line and refining and filling out the iPad.
My original supposition was that Apple was in transition to the new headquarters, a period of relative chaos, and now that that is out of the way, and even more space is being acquired, we should see a explosion of new product development in front of us.
On the other hand, and no good deed goes unpunished, Apple is very conservative about adopting new technology until it is either ready for the consumer, or more importantly, until the consumer is ready for the innovation.
The iPad Pro is on the cusp of a new paradigm, as is the Watch, providing yet more granularity to user workflow. I'm confident that we are close; maybe 2020 for Apple to enable the iPad Pro as a reasonable substitute for a laptop or desktop computer.
I don't think that Apple needed the new headquarters to enable more development. They just need any space for developers and engineers. The new headquarters is about security - its the world's most high tech prison for Apple's workers. That's why they have the large Apple park in the center of the ring. Its the new Pentagon.
The iPad will be a substitute for a laptop or desktop when it supports a mouse. I think that that will be 2021 or 2022. This sort of development transition takes time (its not just a hardware switch but getting off of Intel will be good). But the new Photoshop on iPad is definitely a sign that it will come someday.
I have a 2017 iPadPro and see no reason to upgrade just for FaceID. Maybe when they have 4K/5K OLED screen.
There is no reason to believe you’re supposed to upgrade from a one-year old ipad for Face ID. Apple’s annual products are better and include newer, better features, but they aren’t designed to make people upgrade every single year. Some do but it’s tech enthusiasts. But when you upgrade, the years of annual improvement produce a very nice upgrade.