According to the latest Canalys data, global tablet shipments fell 18% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023 to 31.7 million units. And the news for Apple was mixed.
Quarter one’s tablet shipments is the lowest number of shipments since the onset of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020, when supply and distribution were heavily disrupted, according to Canalys. While shipments are set to hover around pre-pandemic levels in the short term, vendors will benefit from opportunities in the premium consumer segment and from increased deployments in commercial and education environments, adds the research group.
Canalys says Apple remained top of the worldwide tablet market with 12.4 million units shipped, for a 17% year-on-year decline. A strong push to fill the channel in the previous quarter and a lack of new launches in quarter one led to a relatively muted quarter for iPads.
Apple now has 38.9% of the global tablet market. This compares to sales of 14.9 million iPads and 38.6% market share in the first quarter of 2022.
Samsung held second place with 6.7 million units shipped, posting a 14% decline. Third-placed Amazon shipped 2.5 million units, posting a 30% year-on-year drop. Lenovo narrowly secured fourth place but faced the largest decline of the top five vendors, with its tablet shipments down 37% to 1.9 million units. Huawei finished fifth with a relatively modest decline of 4%, buoyed by strong demand in its home market of China.
