According to estimates provided by the IDC, the last quarter of 2016 saw the tablet market slip 14.7% to 43 million units shipped.
It’s the eighth quarter in a row the category has declined in size
As with the preceding quarter, Apple and Samsung maintained their positions in first and second place.
Although both companies saw their overall shipment numbers fall, Apple ended up raising their market share to 21.5% while Samsung fell to 15.1%.
Amazon held onto third place at just below half of that number with 7.3%.
Meanwhile, Lenovo grew to 6.3% and Huawei followed to 5.6%.
While these top five vendors accounted for 55.8% of all units shipped, none managed to make it across the 10 million unit mark.
These new numbers also suggest that while Windows-based tablets grew to occupy 16% of the market, Microsoft’s own Surface range has yet to catch on in the same way.
IDC research analyst Jitesh Ubrani cautioned against the long-term impacts that the vendor’s push for low-cost tablets may yield.
“The race to the bottom is something we have already experienced with slates and it may prove detrimental to the market in the long run as detachables could easily be seen as disposable devices rather than potential PC replacements.”
