Consumers do not want to spend on tablets, IDC remarks-- Q4 2016 is the 9th consecutive quarter of tablet decline, with shipments dropping by -20.1% Y-o-Y to 52.9 million units.
Full year 2016 also sees declines, as shipments total 174.8m, down by -15.6% compared to 2015. This marks a second straight year of declining tablet shipments.
"The sentiment around the tablet market continues to grow stale despite a lot of talk about vendors pivoting their product portfolios toward the detachable segment," the analyst says. "Typical tablets without a dedicated keyboard, which IDC refers to as slate tablets, are continuing to lose relevancy across all regions and, as a result, we see the decline happening globally. We do see future growth in some emerging markets like the EMA as well as CEE with the sole catalysts being simplicity and low cost. Unfortunately for the industry these are the devices that don't equate to large revenues."