Options
Tablet Sales - Boom and Bust ?
alanwarwic
Posts: 28,396
Forum Member
✭✭✭
http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/18/technology/mobile/apple-ipad/
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/22/apple-q3-2014-results/
Despite the new Air and a Retina Mini sales fell again, though less than last years bigger 16% YOY fall in the same quarter.
The fall would likely have been bigger but for a China 50% over month2 increase in iPad sales.
With other brand tablets likely faring worse, is this the end of our love affair with tablets? (I typed this on a laptop)
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/22/apple-q3-2014-results/
Despite the new Air and a Retina Mini sales fell again, though less than last years bigger 16% YOY fall in the same quarter.
The fall would likely have been bigger but for a China 50% over month2 increase in iPad sales.
With other brand tablets likely faring worse, is this the end of our love affair with tablets? (I typed this on a laptop)
0
Comments
thanks for letting us know
I thought the iPad downward trend was an exception in the tablet market....other brands are seeing growth
Don't know about Mac tablets as have only used them intermittently, but in the long term I think people are going to want tablets to be more of a cutdown laptop than a glorified phone.
Not everyone has a phone on a contract. I don't have my phone on a contract so buy which ever model I want and a monthly sim to suit my needs which means if the coverage is rubbish I can change the sim whenever I want.
I typed this on my iPad which is used for 95% of my computing needs!!
I only gave it to my parents because they asked me which tablet to buy, and I thought I'd help them avoid wasting their money. I'm guessing they'll return it when the novelty wears off.
I would agree with that.
We have an iPad 1 and kept using that until last Xmas when we replaced it with an iPad Air, however, it was still a very good device.
I have an iPad mini, and have no need to upgrade it at this moment in time and because it is also getting iOS 8, it will last a good while longer.
The odd ones out are RT and IOS, though RT is also mouse and USB friendly like Android.
If they all transition to having keyboards to keep selling I'm 99% sure IOS will one day get mouse support.
1) Those people who wanted them already have one. We are seeing the exact same thing with the iPod, unless they break then why bother upgrading. My iPad 2 has lasted me three years and I have reciently given it to my 2 year old to watch educational videos
2) They dont see a point to upgrading once a year when Apple in particular makes very small device upgrades. The last major upgrade was from the iPad 2 to 3
3) Apart from playing games and going on the web you cant really do that much with them. They are designed to consume content not produce it
4) Apple are very expensive. £400 for a 16GB iPad is too expensive expecially when 16GB is a pathetically small amount of storage.
5) Samsung I think have released 11 tablets this year confusing the average consumer. I am confused by Apple's iPad iteritations. Why they could not call them the iPad 3, 4 etc is beyond me. This year we will probably see iPad Air Retnia display mini plus of something equally stupid
You don't need to replace a tablet every few months, so maybe those who already have a perfectly good tablet, don't feel the need to replace it.
I'm wondering how the much vaunted Nexus 8 will fare, in view of the popularity of the nexus 7.
The 7" model is very popular right now:-
^^^^
That was last October, mind.
Exactly - the Ipads are a great piece of kit and we have an Ipad 2 (wife) and 3 (me). We will not be upgrading until they die. My boss has just changed his ipad 1 to an Ipad Air.
I'm not an average customer, but I get very confused by the Samsung tablet lineup as there as far too many variants of Tab, Tab Pro and Note.
It's long been Samsung policy to have a product in every niche market.
Tablets are bought on a non contract basis so people will only upgrade when the existing tablet breaks or is so slow it's not doing the job.
I'd suggest a tablet has a life of up to 5 years before it's no longer useful.
"Apple’s figures show a year-on-year decline in iPad sales"
"We also appear to have reached “peak Kindle”, at least for now, with falls showing a 47.1 per cent decline in first quarter. "
"What growth there is to come in tablets – as we suggested last week - will belong to no-name commodity manufacturers running bog-standard Android."
I think the Kindle fall was bigger in that it has no China growth to lessen sales falls.
It's quite misleading. Sales are flat not declining. The only thing declining is the rate of growth. The tablet market is well and truly saturated now and won't see the growth they had before. Also many people apparently don't feel the need to upgrade them every year or two to the same degree as they often do with smartphones.
Add that from last year and we get towards a 25% YOY decline, at least in this quarter.
Even an aggregated 'flat' with tablet sales reckoned to have gone up 100% the iPad is struggling to stand still.
Anyway, like I predicted years ago, Apple held back on phablets so that they can fill the void when needed.
That time is likely now, well October is they get that Alpha like IOS 8 Beta fixed.
Android is ok. Windows is not really booming into the Tablet market is it? Most of the windows tablets around uses a limited version anyway, with a desktop that is not much use.
You can get all on machines now based on Android, not sure if it would be for me, but some people likes them other wise they would not sell. i know someone who was looking at one, but after a chinwag, with me he changed his mind and went for a all in one windows based machine instead. Better for his family.
But as a tablet OS Android is ok and for phones as well, it seems stable, fast and easy to use. My main problem with Android is Google and that they like to know everything about the user.
No such thing as Mac tablets, the Os is different to a Mac, even if Apple do seem determined to put Tablet IOS features on the Mac OS.
you put full blown windows on a tablet and then you need better batteries and more processor power with more memory, so the tablet have to be larger, just like the Surface pro, and then you get into the glorified laptop market to be honest.
The pro is a nice machine, don't get me wrong, but a tablet it is not.
As for tablet sales, I think they will slow down as people find the ones that have does the job or they decide that maybe that desktop or laptop does a better job after all.
Apple also tracks far more, if not the same in that they massively use crowd sourcing even expanding it to bluetooth now.
I've always always thought Apple denying you the right to use GPS in Airplane Mode was much them tracking you, though I do admit their GPS was once not very good unless supplemented by Network Info.
And believe it or not, Apple have even US patented GPS navigation via crowd sourcing for traffic info.
All the software on the app store works smoothly and it's hard to see how the screen resolution could be improved such that you could tell the difference.
Like many here say there is just no need to upgrade until the device dies.
However, that sealed battery will gradually stop holding a charge.
I's say its failed buttons and cracked screen where failures will be.
Talking of failure, the only laptop or PC I have ever had fail was a works supplied laptop.
Even the hard drives have all been rock solid.
My 7 or so years old Acer has a cracked hinge(still no problem) but that is because I closed it onto something.
And I'd also say I have dropped each of my 3 laptops at least once.