The latest research from Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) shows that fierce price competition has put incredible pressure on many Android tablet vendors, but a few companies, such as Apple, stood above the rest in quarter one [Q1] of 2019.
Apple, Huawei, Amazon, and Microsoft have each found ways to press their advantage and gain market share as the rest of the market struggles to find momentum. The global tablet market declined 5% year-on-year in Q1 2019.
Senior Research Analyst Chirag Upadhyay, says Apple is competing strongly with three iPad Pro models in the premium price tier. Analyst Eric Sith adds that Apple iOS shipments (sell-in) grew 9% year-on-year to 9.9 million units in Q1 2019, pushing its worldwide market share to 27% of the tablet market.
Apple added 3 percentage points to its market share year-over-year. The new iPad Pro portfolio had momentum this quarter, boosting average sales prices (ASPs) to $490 this quarter from $451 in Q1 2018.
“Refreshing iPad Pro and MacBook Air at the same time plays into Apple’s strategy to target different user bases with different computing solutions,” says Smith. “Education still represents a good opportunity for Apple as schools often have PCs and tablets available for different use cases.”