With no major new products introduced, tablet sales in general, but Apple iPad sales in particular, declined in the second quarter of this year, an IDC report states.
The research firm today released tablet sales figures for the months of April, May and June that show sales of the popular computer gadgets slipped by 9.7 percent from the first quarter, although they rose by almost 60 percent from the year ago quarter, to 45.1 million units shipped globally. However, Apple iPad sales plummeted by 25 percent sequentially, and by 14.1 percent year over year, to 14.6 million units in the second quarter of 2013.
IDC believes that the slump occurred because Apple changed its previous strategy of launching a new version of iPad in the spring in favor of waiting until later this year.
“In years past, Apple has launched a new tablet heading into the second quarter, which resulted in strong quarter-over-quarter growth,” IDC stated in a news release. “Now, Apple is expected to launch new tablet products in the second half of the year, a move that better positions it to compete during the holiday season.”
Two other top sellers, Samsung and Acer, also saw their sales drop in the second quarter from the first but increased sales from the year ago quarter by 277 percent and 248 percent, respectively. Nonetheless, Apple remains the king of the tablet hill with 14.6 million units sold in the second quarter (for a 32.4 percent market share) to Samsung’s 8.1 million units (18 percent share) and Acer’s tiny 1.4 million units (3.1 percent share).
Not to be overlooked, Taiwanese tablet maker Asus ranked third in the second quarter with 2 million units shipped (4.5 percent share), followed by China-based Lenovo’s 1.5 million (3.3 percent).
The current model iPad, billed as ‘The New iPad” and commonly known as the iPad 3, has been on the market since March 16, 2012, and so, in the context of the fast-moving technology industry, that’s kind of long in the tooth. The iPad Mini has been on the market since Oct. 23 of last year. The Web, of course, has been abuzz with rumors and speculation about what will be in the new iPads, along with some consternation among Apple fans as to whether Apple will be able to knock one out of the park with the new models. At the Macworld Conference I covered in San Francisco back in February, one Apple expert, Christina Bonnington, staff writer for Wired, noted that the company has a reputation for wowing the public with it’s new innovations but that with the iPhone – and, to me, also the iPad – “the experience is pretty much the same.”
If consumers have to wait till the fall for a new iPad, it needs to REALLY wow.
