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Global tablet sales decline, with only Apple and Huawei showing growth

Global tablet sales decline, with only Apple and Huawei showing growth

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Other tablet makers like Amazon and Samsung, however? Ouch

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The worldwide tablet market has been declining year after year for what feels like… forever. In fact, it’s been spiraling downward for 15 straight quarters, and the second quarter of 2018 didn’t show any improvement to that trend. Unlike many other tablet makers, however, Apple and Huawei have been able to hold out some growth, albeit minimal, according to IDC’s latest industry report.

The amount of tablets shipped worldwide was 33 million this past quarter, decreasing by 5 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In previous years, tablet sales had been declining by single digit numbers, but this year that’s been bumped up to the double-digits. According to IDC, the global tablet market declined 13.5 percent this quarter.

“Though consumers and businesses alike have shown interest in the detachable form factor, those operating on tighter budgets have had very few options available to them and hence some have opted for traditional PCs,” Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analysts for IDC, said in the release. “However, with the launch of the Surface Go, Chrome OS-based, and hopefully a more affordable iPad Pro in the future, the detachable category still has a bright future, provided the performance and software lines up with users’ expectations.”

International Data Corporation

Apple and Huawei were the only two companies that saw any growth at all, with Huawei leading Apple by nearly 7 percent. Apple still came out on top when it came to total shipments, with over 11 million, totaling a third of all tablets shipped across all major companies.