iPad sales plummet, taking the entire tablet market with them

Last year, the tablets did not sell like hotcakes. Even Apple has been affected by this trend, due to the lack of a new iPad in 2023.

Now that 2024 is well underway, we can look back at what happened last year. The International Data Corporation (IDC) has taken a particular interest in tablets, a market that has stabilized after experiencing fairly good growth during the COVID 19 pandemic.

So, the figures are not positive, of course, but are they catastrophic?

The craze for tablets at half mast

Have you bought a tablet in the last year? According to the IDC, fewer of you would answer in the affirmative than in the previous year. In 2022, the figures already showed that after a boom at the beginning of the decade, the market seemed to be stabilizing. Once all homes are equipped, stocks obviously flow less quickly.

A trend which, unfortunately for manufacturers, took a completely different turn in 2023, with a drop in tablet sales of 20.5% compared to 2022. Everyone is blaming the blow: -19.8% units elapsed for Apple, -13.9% for Samsung or even -19.7% for Lenovo. Only Huawei manages to keep one nostril above water, limiting the damage to -4%, notably thanks to very correct figures in the last quarter of the year (+21.2% compared to the fourth quarter of 2022).

“ As consumers reserve their money for things other than consumer electronics, tablets may not be a high priority », explains Anuroopa Nataraj, analyst at IDC. “ This market continues to face global challenges, and technological advancements in AI will likely focus more on PC and smartphone over the next two years “.

Don’t worry about Apple, the company is doing well

The Apple firm confirms the trend observed by the IDC. When announcing its latest quarter results, it said that the iPad division saw its revenue fall by almost 25%, or $7.02 billion. This is not insignificant for the industry as a whole, as iPadOS-based devices still represent a significant share of tablets sold worldwide, at 37.8%.

Are we seeing the end of these touch devices? We’re not there yet. While some manufacturers seem to be putting a little more emphasis on hybrid devices, like Lenovo’s latest ideas, Apple has yet to introduce a new iPad in 2024. The current version of the device dates from 2022, and last year was the first since 2010 without a new tablet from the Californian company. The next iPad Air and iPad Pro could, however, boost the figures upwards, it remains to be seen how far this will go.

Overall, Apple recorded very good results during the last quarter. The company achieved a turnover of 119.58 billion dollars, including 69.7 billion dollars on the smartphone side, with an iPhone 15 at the head of the gondola. “ We are pleased to announce that our installed base of active devices has now exceeded 2.2 billion “, declared its CEO, Tim Cook, “ record levels for all products and geographic segments “. Enough to give a head start over a slightly less energetic Samsung at the moment, at least before the rest of a year 2024 which could be complicated for Apple.

Sources: The Verge, IDC